Julio Herrera Velutini wanted a pardon, his family signed Trump's former lawyer Alina Habba for $50 million through his daughter's company, and two weeks after she started work he had it. Habba says she had nothing to do with it. That was the price. The company has no tax ID on file and no business the Times could find. The New York Times reported the contract Tuesday.
Herrera is a Venezuelan banker who founded Britannia Financial Group and a bank in Puerto Rico. Prosecutors charged him in August 2022 with six felonies: a scheme to bribe Puerto Rico's governor into firing the regulator investigating his bank. Two years later the money started moving.
Dec. 31, 2024: Isabela Herrera, 27, his daughter and a U.S. citizen, gave $2.5 million to MAGA Inc.
June 30, 2025: prosecutors cut the six felonies to one campaign-finance misdemeanor. Christopher Kise, Trump's lawyer and Herrera's, negotiated it.
July 22: Isabela gave MAGA Inc. $1 million more, 22 days after the charges were cut.
Aug. 27: Herrera pleaded to the misdemeanor. The next day a New York law firm registered a $495,847.70 judgment against him in Puerto Rico. The firm had defended his co-defendant under a joint-defense deal Herrera agreed to fund. He had not paid.
