Rep. Garcia, Wife Guilty in Wedtech Extortion Plot
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia and his wife were convicted today of extorting payoffs from the Wedtech Corp. in exchange for exercising political influence for the military contractor.
A U.S. District Court jury convicted the Garcias of conspiracy and two counts of extortion. They were acquitted of bribery and receipt of illegal gratuities.
The 56-year-old Democrat was the second Bronx congressman found to have participated in illegal acts at Wedtech. Former Rep. Mario Biaggi was convicted in a Wedtech racketeering case last year and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Others convicted in the Wedtech scandal were E. Robert Wallach, a friend of ex-U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III; former Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon and Wedtech founder John Mariotta.
Robert and Jane Lee Garcia were found to have obtained from Wedtech $175,000 in checks and interest-free loans, and a diamond-and-emerald necklace for Jane Garcia, between 1984 and 1986.
Each of the extortion counts is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and the conspiracy charge carries a maximum five-year sentence.
The monthlong trial was the seventh resulting from the scandal at Wedtech, a small machine shop in the impoverished South Bronx that grew into a multimillion-dollar defense contractor through various bribe schemes.
Upon conviction, Garcia does not automatically lose the House seat he first won in 1978. That is up to the House.
The Garcias were charged in connection with $76,000 allegedly funneled by Wedtech through a lawyer in Puerto Rico to Jane Garcia’s consulting firm, Leesonia Enterprises.
The lawyer, Ralph Vallone Jr., a close friend of Jane Garcia, was charged along with the Garcias but was severed from the trial for health reasons.
The couple faced the same charges for a $20,000 no-interest loan Garcia received from Wedtech in 1985. Testimony showed that Garcia instructed Wedtech to make the loan to his sister, who transferred the money to Jane Garcia.
The conspiracy count covered the Vallone payments and the $20,000 loan. It also included a $77,500 investment Mariotta’s wife made in a Benetton store Jane Garcia wanted to open in Puerto Rico, a $1,500 loan from Wedtech to Garcia and the emerald necklace, which Mariotta bought for Jane Garcia the day after the Garcias set up a meeting between Wedtech officials and Gov. Rafael Hernandez-Colon of Puerto Rico.
