A group of citizens took the former secretary of the Interior Government with a saucepan Ricardo Rosselló, Ricardo Llerandi, and to the Novoprogressive senator, Miguel Romero, of the “Latte que Latte” business on Ingeniero Manuel Domenech avenue in San Juan, while he was beaten and claimed for the government’s poor response to the emergency caused by the January 7 earthquake and the discovery of a warehouse with thousands of supplies in Ponce that had not been distributed.
The video shows Llerandi, who also worked in the Commerce and Export Company in this administration; to Romero, who aspires to the mayor’s office of San Juan; and to the legislative advisor, Raúl Márquez Hernández, sitting at a table of the establishment when several people approach him and question them about the situation that the country is experiencing after the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that affected the southwest strip of Puerto Rico, as well as by the deaths of Hurricane Maria and the government’s handling of both crises.
“What does it feel like to let the people of this country die? What does it feel like to be responsible for corruption? What does it feel like in this country people don’t have the slightest respect for you anymore?”, you hear one of the people who comes to record Llerandi and Romero. Then they both stop and leave the place next to Márquez, while people follow them even outside the premises.
“You are the people who represent the murderers of the people. You particularly, you,” says the protester to Llerandi, whose signature is the one that appears in the lease of the warehouse where the supplies that have caused collective outrage were found in the country because it was considered that while the southwest area had needs, all that material and supplies remained there without being distributed shortly after Hurricane Maria on September 20, 2017.
Llerandi remained in government until last October when he presented his resignation to Governor Wanda Vázquez as director of the Trade and Export Company. Months earlier, in July, he had left his post as secretary of the Interior in the midst of the scandal of the Telegram chat, of which he was part along with 11 other officials and friends of then governor Ricardo Rosselló, who resigned as a result of the revelation and pressure of a large sector of the population.
Who is Raúl Márquez Hernández?
Márquez Hernández has accumulated $ 459,700 in contracts with the House of Representatives since January 2017, through the Legislative Assesment, LLC corporation.
Legislative Assesment was organized as a limited liability company on December 19, 2016, shortly before the oath of the Novoprogressive administration. However, its president, Márquez Hernández, has been a contractor for that legislative body since 2009 through the Echeandía & Asociados Law Firm, registered in his wife’s name.
Estudio Legal Echeandía & Asociados accumulated $ 263,400 in contracts with the Senate of Puerto Rico since January 2017.
This newspaper confirmed, through a call to the office of Estudio Legal Echeandía & Asociados, that Llerandi Cruz works for this company, after resigning his position as Director of Commerce and Exportation in October 2019.
When Llerandi was a representative in the Chamber, he also hired Márquez Hernández as legal advisor.
The warehouse in the middle of the dispute belongs to Commerce and Export who rented the property to the Bureau of Emergency Management and Disaster Management (NMEAD) for a cost of $ 268,101 for two years and three months, according to the contract. The facilities were available from April 2019, with the purpose of storing emergency supplies and equipment to respond to catastrophic events more effectively.
In a tweet, Llerandi explained that his only role was to rent the facility to the NMEAD and added that, since 2018, seven distribution centers had been created, to facilitate the response to the emergency and correct distribution errors of Hurricane Maria.
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