Henry Cuellar and Wife Indicted for Conspiracy and Bribery

(RepublicanDaily.org) – A Democratic representative from Texas, along with his wife, have been indicted on allegations that they accepted bribes from foreign entities.

Democratic Texas Representative Henry Cuellar and his spouse, Imelda Cuellar, are charged with accepting bribes since 2014 that total roughly $600,000. The payments are allegedly from an oil and gas company owned by the government of Azerbaijan, as well as from a bank based in Mexico. The payments, which occurred over the course of several years, beginning in December 2014 to November 2021, were from the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, which paid the couple $360,000; and from Banco Azteca, which forked over $236,390 of illegal payments to the Cuellars.

Authorities claim that the Cuellars, through Imelda, put up fake consulting firms and other intermediaries in order to launder the payments, but provided no such consulting services. Instead, the indictment indicates that Representative Cuellar promised to leverage his position as a member of the House’s Appropriations Committee to benefit Azerbaijan’s foreign policy, and to drive business towards the Mexican bank, such as pushing initiatives that would prevent federal regulation of the payday lending industry.

The 54-page indictment of the couple charges them with two counts each of conspiracy to commit bribery of a federal official and having a public official act as an agent of a foreign principal, bribery of a federal official, violating the ban on public officials acting as agents of a foreign principal, and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. They also face five counts of money laundering and a single charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

For his part, however, Representative Cuellar has categorically denied all charges against him and his wife. In a statement, the Texas representative said that “both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations,” and insisted that all acts and activities he undertook during his tenure were for the benefit of the people of South Texas.