SAN DIEGO–Marco Polo Cortes, a San Diego-based lobbyist, made an initial appearance in federal district court on charges that he conspired to finance political campaigns using money from an illegal foreign source.
Cortes was arrested by FBI agents on Tuesday in the Little Italy section of San Diego, pursuant to an arrest warrant. According to the complaint filed by an FBI special agent and unsealed by U.S. Magistrate Judge William V. Gallo, Cortes conspired with Ravneet Singh and Ernesto Encinas—each of whom were named in a similar complaint unsealed yesterday—to funnel more than $500,000 of illegal foreign money into San Diego municipal and federal campaigns, primarily in 2012 and 2013. The source of the illegal foreign money, the complaint stated, was a person referred to as “the Foreign National.”
As set forth in the complaint, Cortes has lobbied San Diego Police Department officials, city council members, and mayoral staff. In 2012, Cortes and a co-conspirator approached a representative of a person running for federal elective office during the 2012 general election cycle. But one of the candidate’s representatives informed Cortes that the Foreign National would need to at least show proof of a green card and e-mailed Cortes a link to the Federal Election Commission’s rules on foreign contributions. Despite this, Cortes and a co-conspirator helped the Foreign National contribute in the straw donor’s name instead.
Later, Cortes joined together with Singh and other co-conspirators to facilitate illegal in-kind contributions to a candidate for the office of mayor during the 2012 general election cycle. Finally, in September 2013, Cortes met with a confidential informant to discuss the possibility of arranging additional contributions from the Foreign National to a candidate for the office of mayor during the 2012 special election.
“We will not tolerate fraud in our elections at any level, and we will root out the influence of foreign money in our electoral processes and on our elected leaders,” said Acting United States Attorney Cindy Cipriani on Wednesday.
