Puerto Rico’s Real Life Goodfellas

Commentary

by Richard Lawless


Who is William Rodney Clark?  Mr. Clark was the former Administrator 
for the Fuel Oil Office at Puerto Rico’s largest utility, PREPA.  William 
Clark is accused in a RICO Lawsuit filed earlier this year of setting up a 
decades long scheme to steal $100,000,000 a year in public funds.  Mr. 
Clark is alleged to have put together a number of oil contracts for the uti-
lity that would overcharge the people of Puerto Rico for the fuel oil and 
then kickback the over payment to Mr. Clark for his own personal use. 
This has been going on for over 10 years and the kickbacks amount to 
over one billion dollars.

William Rodney Clark is not a household name yet, but I am willing to bet 
a billion dollars that over the next few months he will become pretty famous. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Clark, he allegedly shared this windfall with Puerto 
Rico Government officials, oil testing companies, police officials and 
some say, Federal law enforcement officials.  Luckily for the people of 
Puerto Rico, there is no honor among thieves.  Once the lawsuit was filed, 
self-preservation kicks in and these same want-to-be “Goodfellas” roll over 
for lighter sentencing and/or smaller civil penalties.

William Rodney Clark may be the lead actor in this made for TV movie, but 
the cast of characters is long and deep.  Each day this week I will highlight 
a key supporting actor or actress in this drama to help our readers piece toge-
ther one of the largest thefts of Public Funds in history and a $9,000,000,000 
bond fraud.

Richard Lawless is CEO of Commercial Solar Power, Inc. in Temecula, CA. The 
opinions expressed  in the preceding commentary are exclusively his own and do 
not represent the opinions of The Puerto Rico Monitor, its editors or advertisers.