Commentary
Richard Lawless
As the CEO of Commercial Solar Power (CSP), Mr. Lawless ordered a for-
ensic investigation into the $13,200,000 losses the company incurred while
doing business in Puerto Rico. In an effort to better understand the causes
for such losses, Mr. Lawless and his team uncovered questionable practices
by the Puerto Rico Government and outright fraud by the Credit Rating Ag-
encies, Fitch, Moody’s and S&P.
The very first step in considering an investment of company resources in any
company is to check the credit ratings of the company and make sure they are
financially sound. In this case, the rating agencies were giving the Puerto Ri-
co Electric Power Authority an “A” rating. A pretty sound rating for a utility
company.
Given that the credit rating was the companies first step in their due diligen-
ce process, CSP did an audit of the bond offering memorandums that these
good ratings were based on. The audit uncovered hundreds of millions in mi-
ssing funds and a utility that has been technically bankrupt since 2007. It see-
med inconceivable to the CSP team that all three rating agencies gave a bank-
rupt company an investment grade credit rating. We delivered the results of
our audit to the Puerto Rico FBI, U.S. Attorney and the Puerto Rico Legisla-
ture.
After receiving no response for many months, I wrote an editorial that appe-
ared in many Puerto Rico Newspapers and Blogs. Shortly after I wrote the
article I started receiving phone calls. One of the calls was from someone who
implied he was from the CIA and stated that the CIA has been listening into
phone activity between the utility and Hugo Chavez (Venezuela). The calls
detailed a criminal enterprise that was stealing literally billions in public fun-
ds through bogus oil purchases and fraudulent municipal bond issues. While
listening in to the conversations over a number of years it became clear that
the Puerto Rico FBI Office and the Puerto Rico U.S. Attorney Office were
(and are) accepting payoffs to insure no interference from those agencies. This
story was confirmed to me by British Intelligence and confirmed a third time
by the editors of Caribbean News Now.
Shortly after this disclosure the FBI got back to me. I was left a voicemail that
suggested the agency was very concerned about my criminal complaint but
could not find criminal grounds to pursue charges. I was surprised by that res-
ponse so I contacted all persons of interest and discovered no one was ever in-
terviewed by the FBI. In addition, during this time frame, two private parties
filed RICO charges against the utility that were challenged and upheld by the
courts. Amazing that private parties can file charges claiming that the utility
is an organized criminal enterprise but the DOJ can’t.
To make matters worse for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney, the Puerto Rico Se-
nate issued a 23-page report outlining the theft of billions and the purchase of
knowingly fraudulent credit ratings from Moody’s, Fitch and S&P. These pho-
ny credit ratings have already resulted in billions of losses for those bond hol-
ders. Once again the FBI and U.S. Attorney did nothing.
We have a 23-page confession and financial audits supporting all of the illegal
activity. No charges, no investigation.
It was brought to my attention that Treasury Secretary Lew while COO for Citi-
bank, and Treasury Counsels, Weiss and Campbell while working for Lazard,
participated in this fraudulent activity by selling these knowingly fraudulent
bonds before joining the Treasury Department. This may help explain the rel-
uctance of the FBI and DOJ to do anything about any of this.
Now it is up to the Press to bring pressure on our legislators to get involved.
Richard Lawless is a former senior banker who has specialized in evaluating and granting
debt for over 25 years. He has a Master’s Degree in Finance from the University of San Diego
and Bachelor’s Degree from Pepperdine University. He sits on a number of Corporate Boards
and actively writes for a number of finance publications. The opinions expressed in the prece-
ding commentary are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of The Puerto
Rico Monitor, its editors, contributors or advertisers.
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