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Days before the scheduled start of his trial in Rhode Island, prosecutors say former Holyoke City Councilor Wilmer Puello-Mota boarded an international flight bound for Turkey and fled the country.
Puello-Mota, 28, with a last known address on Main Street in Holyoke, was scheduled to face trial on Jan. 5 but requested an extension until Jan. 9. He was charged with possession of child pornography, obstruction of the judicial system, forgery and counterfeiting.
On Jan. 7, Puello-Mota boarded Turkish Airlines Flight 8 from Dulles International Airport in Washington, bound for Istanbul, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office said in a bail violation filing.
“His whereabouts from that location are unknown,” Special Assistant Attorney General John C. Malloy wrote in that document. “The Defendant did not have permission from this Court to travel.”
If his trial had gone off as scheduled and if he had been convicted, Puello-Mota could have received up to five years in prison.
The Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office shared the bail violation form, along with a copy of a supporting document prepared by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection after a reporter shared a link to a Facebook page purportedly belonging to Puello-Mota.
That Facebook page, which has posts dating back to 2015, was changed to indicate that Puello-Mota now lives in Moscow. The page features a photo of Red Square at the Kremlin and says, in the Cyrillic alphabet, that Puello-Mota’s current place of employment is the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Puello-Mota is a former member of the 104th Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, who served as a technical sergeant in the base security force at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield
The Attorney General’s office in Rhode Island declined further comment.
The office of Puello-Mota’s Rhode Island attorney, John M. Cicilline, also declined comment and requested that a reporter never call them again.
Calls and texts to Puello-Mota’s cellphone, which he used as recently as a few months ago, were unreturned. And the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Documents provided by Rhode Island prosecutors say Puello-Mota presented a passport for travel.
After he failed to appear at a disposition hearing in early January, Rhode Island authorities said the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force was searching for him.
The whole criminal case against Puello-Mota stemmed from a May 2020 arrest at a hotel in Warwick, Rhode Island, after he called police to report a stolen firearm.
When they arrived, police investigating his report discovered Puello-Mota was at the hotel to meet a 17-year-old girl he’d met online. The girl told police Puello-Mota was her “sugar daddy.”
Police searched his cell phone and found nude photos and videos of the girl in a trash folder. They charged him with possession of child pornography.
During the initial investigation, the girl told police Puello-Mota had given her money. Police found evidence of payments made by Puello-Mota to the girl through the app Venmo. Puello-Mota told police at that time that he believed the girl was 22 and he had just learned she was 17.
Puello-Mota was also accused of charges of obstruction of the judicial system, forgery and counterfeiting. Prosecutors say he forged documents and impersonated his commander while a member of the 104th in an attempt to get a favorable disposition on the child porn charges.
Massachusetts State Police arrested him on May 11, 2022, at the entrance of Barnes.
He was a Holyoke Ward 2 councilor until the end of 2023 after he did not run for reelection. His fellow councilors tried to expel him, but he sued and regained the seat.
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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