Julián Vega Questioned Over Use of Judicial Donation in Campaign Activities

The councilman and mayoral candidate in Mariano Roque Alonso, Julián Vega, was at the center of a new controversy after the release of a video recorded during a conciliation hearing at the Prosecutor’s Office in that district.

According to ABC Color, in the images a father directly questions Vega about the destination of a set of air-conditioning units that his daughter had handed over to the Public Ministry as a reparation measure to obtain a benefit in a judicial proceeding.

According to the complaint cited by that outlet, Vega, who acted as a lawyer, would have illegally kept those items and later distributed them at campaign events. The same filing also suggests a possible complicity by prosecutors linked to the case.

ABC Color also reported that in the video the man can be heard warning that he would make what happened public, while the councilman responds by offering to step aside from legal representation in the case file.

The newspaper said it tried to obtain Vega’s version through calls and messages to his cellphone, but received no response.

Still according to ABC Color, this is not the first time the leader has been accused of using private or state property for political purposes. Months earlier, he had been singled out for distributing food supplies from the Ministry of Social Development, in a situation in which he himself thanked minister Tadeo Rojas and president Santiago Peña on social media for food delivered at a local soup kitchen.

The publication also recalled that Vega was removed in 2018 from the Directorate of Migration after an incident in Taiwan. At that time, his explanation was that it had been