Tory donor pleads not guilty to US bribery charges

A major Tory donor has pleaded not guilty to charges including bribery in Puerto Rico.

Julio Martin Herrera Velutini is accused of promising to help a former governor of the US territory to get re-elected if she dismissed an official investigating a bank he owned there.

Mr Herrera has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party through his London-based firm Britannia Financial Group Limited since 2019.

His lawyers said he denies all the charges against him.

According to the indictment, financial regulators in Puerto Rico began investigating an international bank Mr Herrera ran there in 2019.

They went on to identify dozens of suspicious financial transactions which the bank did not report as required, including payments involving accounts and entities owned or controlled by Mr Herrera.

Through intermediaries, the Venezuelan banker is alleged to have offered to help the then governor Wanda Vazquez Garced's re-election campaign in exchange for "terminating" the man in charge of the investigation, according to the US Department of Justice, and replacing him with someone of Mr Herrera's choosing.

Prosecutors claim the former governor accepted the offer of a bribe and took action to demand the regulator's resignation and put a former consultant for Mr Herrera's bank in his place.

In return, it is alleged that Mr Herrera paid more than £250,000 to political consultants to help the former governor's campaign.

Although the political consultancy firm is not named in the indictment, it was identified as CT Group by Channel 4 News and the investigative blog the Sarawak Report earlier in August.

The company, which was founded by the Australian political strategist Sir Lynton Crosby, has a long-standing association with the Conservative Party.

Mark Fullbrook, who was CT Group's former Chief Global Projects Officer and is understood to be working on Liz Truss' campaign to become the next leader of the party, was one of those who worked on the Puerto Rico brief. He has been tipped by some to be Ms Truss's chief of staff if she becomes prime minister.

There is no suggestion CT Group or Mr Fullbrook knew anything about the alleged bribery of the governor.

A spokesperson for the company said: "CT was engaged only by Mr Herrera and only to conduct opinion research for him and no one else. It never did any work for, nor presented any research findings to, the Governor or her campaign. It has not been engaged by him since.

"CT Group is committed to and complies with all laws and regulations in any jurisdiction in which it works and is confident that it has done so in this matter.

"Indeed, relevant existing CT employees and former employee Mark Fullbrook, are witnesses in this matter and they and CT Group have fully, completely and voluntarily engaged with the US authorities in this matter, as they always do in any circumstance in which CT Group's assistance is sought by authorities."

The company said it issued its statement before the court in Puerto Rico barred all parties from making comments about the case which were not a matter of public record.

A Conservative Party spokesperson said: "Donations to the party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, openly published by them and comply fully with the law."

Mr Herrera is charged with conspiracy, federal programs bribery and honest services wire fraud, all of which he denies in full.