Two Big-Time OBAMA Donors Just Arrested By ICE!

Here are more details on the arrests and the political connections, from Cuencahighlife:

Two millionaire fugitives from Ecuador, whose family poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into American political campaigns as they fought to stay in the United States, were arrested this week in Miami by immigration authorities, officials said Friday.

Roberto and William Isaías, 74 and 75, were taken on Wednesday to a detention facility where undocumented immigrants are held pending deportation, according to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the authorities to make the arrests, but ICE’s statement said the brothers were “unlawfully present” in the United States.

The Isaías brothers, bankers vilified in Ecuador for increasing their wealth in the late 1990s just as their bank collapsed — wiping out tens of thousands of customers’ savings — were convicted of embezzlement by a court there in 2012. They were sentenced to prison terms in absentia, having arrived in South Florida almost a decade earlier.

The brothers have vehemently denied accusations that they looted their bank, and said that the Ecuadorian government had politicized the case and unfairly seized their assets. They are still battling in the courts to recover their properties at home.

Ecuador has estimated that the brothers cost the country $400 million, and has for years sought their extradition. At one point, even the American ambassador in Ecuador lobbied for their prompt return, accusing the men of financing a $2 million bribe to get Ecuador’s attorney general to drop the case.

As their criminal case heated up in Ecuador, the cash started flowing in the United States. The Isaías brothers’ relatives donated tens of thousands dollars to members of the United States Congress, and $90,000 to help re-elect President Barack Obama.

A year after the donation to the Obama campaign, the Department of Justice rejected Ecuador’s extradition request, saying it lacked sufficient proof.

The Ecuadorian government later accused Washington of denying its request in exchange for checks. The Obama administration said the donations had nothing to do with its decisions.

A renewed request for extradition is pending, said Alvin B. Davis, the Ecuadorean government’s lawyer in Miami. The Department of Justice referred questions to ICE.

The Isaías brothers are now expected to appear for a deportation hearing in immigration court, said Nestor J. Yglesias, a spokesman for ICE.

Mr. Davis said the government of Ecuador, having won a civil case in Florida against the brothers, is preparing to fight for some $1.3 billion in damages. The arrest left him “gratified,” he said.

“They need to be held responsible after all these years,” Mr. Davis said.

The Isaías’s lawyer in Ecuador, Jorge Zavala Egas, referred questions about the arrest to a South Florida publicist, Alfredo J. Balsera.

Contacted by phone, Mr. Balsera said The New York Times had acted in “bad faith” in previous articles about the Isaías case and declined to comment.

In a 2014 interview, Roberto Isaías denied asking for favors in exchange for political donations.

“My family has given to about 20 congressmen who fight for human rights and freedom of speech in Latin America,” he said. “That’s legal.”

The arrests were confirmed by the NY Times:

Two millionaire fugitives from Ecuador, whose family poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into American political campaigns as they fought to stay in the United States, were arrested last week in Miami by immigration authorities, officials said.

Roberto and William Isaías, 74 and 75, were taken on Wednesday to a detention facility where undocumented immigrants are held pending deportation, according to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the authorities to make the arrests, but ICE’s statement said the brothers were “unlawfully present” in the United States.

The Isaías brothers, bankers vilified in Ecuador for increasing their wealth in the late 1990s just as their bank collapsed — wiping out tens of thousands of customers’ savings — were convicted of embezzlement by a court there in 2012. They were sentenced to prison terms in absentia, having arrived in South Florida almost a decade earlier.

The brothers have vehemently denied accusations that they looted their bank, and said that the Ecuadorean government had politicized the case and unfairly seized their assets. They are still battling in the courts to recover their properties at home.

Ecuador has estimated that the brothers cost the country $400 million, and has for years sought their extradition. At one point, even the American ambassador in Ecuador lobbied for their prompt return, accusing the men of financing a $2 million bribe to get Ecuador’s attorney general to drop the case.

As their criminal case heated up in Ecuador, the cash started flowing in the United States. The Isaías brothers’ relatives donated tens of thousands dollars to members of the United States Congress, and $90,000 to help re-elect President Barack Obama.

A year after the donation to the Obama campaign, the Department of Justice rejected Ecuador’s extradition request, saying it lacked sufficient proof.

The Ecuadorean government later accused Washington of denying its request in exchange for checks. The Obama administration said the donations had nothing to do with its decisions.

A renewed request for extradition is pending, said Alvin B. Davis, the Ecuadorean government’s lawyer in Miami. The Department of Justice referred questions to ICE.

The Isaías brothers are now expected to appear for a deportation hearing in immigration court, said Nestor J. Yglesias, a spokesman for ICE.

And in 2014, this NY Times article gave more details on the big-time Obama contributions:

The donations kept pouring in: hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to President Obama and more than a dozen members of Congress, carefully routed through the families of two wealthy brothers in Florida.

They had good reason to be generous. The two men, Roberto and William Isaias, are fugitives from Ecuador, which has angrily pressed Washington to turn them over, to no avail. A year after their relatives gave $90,000 to help re-elect Mr. Obama, the administration rejected Ecuador’s extradition request for the men, fueling accusations that such donations were helping to keep the brothers and their families safely on American soil.

“The Isaias brothers fled to Miami not to live off their work, something just, but to buy themselves more mansions and Rolls-Royces and to finance American political campaigns,” President Rafael Correa of Ecuador told reporters last month. “That’s what has given them protection,” he added, an allegation the Obama administration and members of Congress reject.

The tug of war over the Isaias brothers, sentenced in an embezzlement case, is part of a broader battle between Ecuador and the White House over international fugitives, including two other men the Obama administration would like to get its hands on: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor.

For close to two years, Ecuador has sheltered Mr. Assange in its embassy in London, arguing that he risks persecution and possibly the death penalty if he ultimately faces trial in the United States for revealing American secrets. Similarly, the White House fumed when Ecuador expressed an openness to granting asylum to Mr. Snowden as well.

But beyond the political hostilities between the two nations, campaign finance experts say, the extensive donations in the Isaias case create the appearance of a financial conflict of interest that hangs over Washington’s decisions on the brothers’ fate. While the contributions were not illegal, analysts say they have opened the already politicized nature of extradition requests to greater scrutiny and raised questions about the access to power the donations provide.

Some analysts have even questioned whether fund-raisers have specifically sought out the two men for contributions because it was clear they were in trouble and would be more likely to give.

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“There is a certain mercenary aura on the Hill when it comes to overlap of fund-raising from wealthy individuals with problems,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a research group. “The key elements are all there: They are wealthy and have problems that are solved by the discretionary judgment of someone in the administration. They have tons of money and are willing to write checks all over the place.”

Donations from the relatives of criminal suspects have proved vexing before. In 2012, Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign said it would returnmore than $200,000 raised by relatives of a Mexican casino magnate who had fled charges in the United States and sought a pardon to return.

The White House says that the decisions in the Isaias case are not influenced by donations.

“The Departments of Justice and State evaluate extradition requests to ensure they meet the terms of the applicable treaty and all requisite legal standards,” Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said in a statement. “These decisions are made on the merits by legal experts at the departments without regard for political contributions.”

Roberto Isaias is open about making targeted contributions to lawmakers from both parties.

“My family has given to about 20 congressmen who fight for human rights and freedom of speech in Latin America,” Mr. Isaias, 69, said in an interview. “That’s legal. If it looks good or bad, the thing I can tell you is that we have never asked for a favor in the case of me or my brother William.”