The New York Times - 06.08.2019

A16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019

Moments after being sworn in
as Puerto Rico’s new governor,
Pedro R. Pierluisi pledged in no
uncertain terms that he would
willingly step down in the coming
days if the island’s Senate voted
against confirming him — even if
that made him one of the shortest-
serving governors ever to take of-
fice.
“I have to admit that that could
happen,” Mr. Pierluisi said with a
chuckle. “But that’s the situation.”
That was on Friday. By Sunday
afternoon, Mr. Pierluisi had ap-
peared to reverse himself, arguing
that the Senate had no say and
that the courts would settle the is-
sue. Then a few hours later, he was
sued.
Puerto Rico remained on Mon-
day where it has been for weeks:
in a state of protracted political
paralysis that appears not to have
been resolved by the installation
of Mr. Pierluisi, who took over af-
ter former Gov. Ricardo A.
Rosselló’s resignation became ef-
fective on Friday. The common-
wealth’s Supreme Court agreed to
take up a legal action filed against
Mr. Pierluisi’s appointment.
Public furor fueled huge dem-
onstrations against Mr. Rosselló
after leaked private messages
showed him and his closest aides
insulting Puerto Ricans. Ques-
tions over Mr. Pierluisi’s legitima-
cy as governor left open the possi-
bility that protesters would again
take to the streets, if they see his
installation as evidence of the un-
popular political establishment
unconstitutionally attempting to
perpetuate itself in power.
“This isn’t about whether Mr.
Pierluisi is a good candidate, as
some people have argued,” said
Julio E. Fontanet Maldonado, a
constitutional scholar and the
dean of the law school at the Inter-
american University of Puerto
Rico. “It’s about defending the
rule of law.”
Late on Sunday, the Senate
president, Thomas Rivera Schatz,
asked a lower court in San Juan,
the capital, to grant a preliminary
injunction ordering Mr. Pierluisi
to cease functions as governor be-

cause he had not previously been

confirmed as secretary of state by

both chambers of the Legislative

Assembly.

The secretary of state is next in

line to succeed the governor. The

House of Representatives con-

firmed Mr. Pierluisi as secretary

of state on Friday, but the Senate

did not hold a hearing. Even in the

case of the House vote, new ques-

tions arose on Monday as to

whether Mr. Pierluisi had sub-

mitted all of the required paper-

work before the vote.

“Puerto Rico is living a situa-

tion without historical precedent,”

wrote Mr. Rivera Schatz, who

leads the pro-statehood New Pro-

gressive Party, which Mr. Pierluisi

and Mr. Rosselló also represent.

The Supreme Court said it

would take up the Senate’s com-

plaint and asked for written argu-

ments by Tuesday afternoon.

Originally, the Senate had

scheduled a confirmation hearing

for Mr. Pierluisi for Monday morn-

ing. But Mr. Pierluisi said that as

governor, he could no longer be

subject to confirmation as secre-

tary of state. The hearing was can-

celed.

Mr. Pierluisi had argued during

a news conference on Friday that

the Senate could “ratify” him as

governor. But no legal framework

for such a vote appears to exist in

Puerto Rican law.

Still, the Senate planned to meet

in special session on Monday af-

ternoon and possibly vote any-

way. In spite of his earlier waf-

fling, Mr. Pierluisi on Monday said

that he would abide by the Sen-

ate’s decision.

“If the Puerto Rico Senate de-

cides to hold any sort of vote over

my incumbency, I will respect the

result,” Mr. Pierluisi said in a

statement. “All I ask of senators

before they make their decision is

that they listen to the people, to

whom we are all indebted.”

A campaign to ask legislators to

back Mr. Pierluisi has been car-

ried out by his supporters for sev-

eral days. One local television sta-

tion sent a crew to interview

Puerto Ricans on the street about

Mr. Pierluisi; the host of the pro-

gram seemed surprised that most

people seemed content with his in-

stallation.

A second lawsuit against Mr.

Pierluisi was filed early on Mon-

day by Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz

of San Juan, who asked the Su-

preme Court to declare Mr. Pier-

luisi’s swearing-in illegitimate.

Ms. Cruz is a 2020 candidate for

governor for the opposition Popu-

lar Democratic Party, which sup-

ports keeping Puerto Rico a

United States commonwealth.

She told reporters over the

weekend that while she does not

support the next New Progressive

official in line to be governor —

Wanda Vázquez, the secretary of

justice — the court must clarify

existing law over the constitu-

tional succession.

Outside the Supreme Court on

Monday, Frank Torres Viada, a

lawyer for the city of San Juan, de-

scribed the island as being in the

middle of a “judicial vacuum.”

“Right now, Puerto Ricans are

in a state of uncertainty, unrest

and restlessness of spirit,” he said,

“because we don’t really know

who is governor of Puerto Rico.”

In Puerto Rico, Installation of the New Governor Is Challenged

By PATRICIA MAZZEI

Pedro R. Pierluisi, the new governor of Puerto Rico, said he would step down if the Senate did not confirm him, then took it back.

ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Edmy Ayala reported from San
Juan, and Patricia Mazzei from
Miami.

R. Kelly offered an underage au-

tograph seeker $200 to take off

her clothes and dance with him in

his hotel room, then touched her

sexually, according to officials in

Minneapolis who announced new

sexual misconduct charges

against the singer on Monday.

Mr. Kelly, 52, who already faces

federal and local charges of sexual

assault, child pornography and

obstruction of justice in Illinois

and New York, was charged in

Minneapolis with two counts of

engaging in prostitution with a mi-

nor, said Mike Freeman, the Hen-

nepin County attorney, at a news

conference on Monday.

At a promotional event at the

Minneapolis City Center in 2001,

the girl, who was 17, approached

Mr. Kelly for his autograph, Mr.

Freeman said. When he handed it

back to her, she saw that next to

his name was a phone number.

She called, and was invited to his

hotel, where a member of his staff

escorted her to Mr. Kelly’s suite.

There, he offered her $200 to

dance for him, Mr. Freeman said.

She accepted.

According to the criminal com-

plaint, the girl, now a woman in

her mid-30s, told investigators

this year that Mr. Kelly helped re-

move her clothing, then took off

his own clothes, and they danced.

She said Mr. Kelly laid on the

bed and that she climbed on top of

him. Mr. Kelly then touched her all

over her body, including her vagi-

na and breasts, she told investiga-

tors. Mr. Kelly also offered the girl

free V.I.P. seating at his concert,

which was restricted to adults.

The three-year statute of limita-

tions does not hinder prosecution

in this case, Mr. Freeman said, be-

cause the clock stopped when Mr.

Kelly, who has lived in the Chicago

and Atlanta areas, left Minnesota,

and there was no indication that

he had spent three years in the

state since then.

The county attorney’s office be-

came aware of the allegations in

January when the woman con-

tacted a tip line that had been set

up by the Cook County State’s At-

torney’s Office in Chicago follow-

ing the airing of “Surviving R.

Kelly,” a Lifetime documentary se-

ries about the singer’s treatment

of women. In bringing the

charges, investigators inter-

viewed the girl and her brother,

who Mr. Freeman said had be-

come suspicious when he saw that

his sister had a front-row view of

Mr. Kelly’s concert. Mr. Freeman

said both were embarrassed

about the incident at the time and

were not willing to come forward

until the outpouring of allegations

against Mr. Kelly this year.

Through years of allegations,

rumors, and even a previous trial

on charges of child pornography

— he was acquitted on all counts

in 2008 when the girl and her par-

ents refused to testify — Mr. Kelly,

whose full name is Robert S. Kelly,

seemed largely impervious to

prosecution. But since January,

when “Surviving R. Kelly” aired,

the accusations appear to have

caught up to him.

In February, he was charged in

Cook County with sexual abuse of

four women, three of whom were

underage at the time. Then last

month, he was indicted on federal

charges in Brooklyn and Chicago,

on counts including producing

child pornography and conspir-

acy to obstruct justice. Crucially,

the girl at the center of his 2008

trial, who refused to testify then, is

now cooperating with federal in-

vestigators.

“Some might say, ‘Aren’t you

piling on?’ ” Mr. Freeman said at

the news conference.

“He’s got federal charges in

New York, he’s got state charges

in Cook County,” he said. “Well,

frankly, Minnesota victims de-

serve their day in court.”

Mr. Kelly’s lawyer, Steve Green-

berg, dismissed the new charges

on Monday. “Re: New charges

@RKelly give me a break,” he

wrote on Twitter. “This is beyond

absurd.” Last week, another law-

yer for Mr. Kelly characterized the

accusations as “groupie remorse.”

Mr. Freeman, the county attor-

ney, said that after the two met in

the hotel room, the girl called the

phone number R. Kelly gave to

her again and spoke with him

briefly. Eventually the phone

number was changed. That was

the extent of their contact, Mr.

Freeman said.

R. Kelly Faces

2 New Counts

Of Sex Crimes

In Minnesota

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

and JULIA JACOBS

A criminal complaint

alleges prostitution

with a minor in 2001.

Safety concerns at a prominent
military germ lab have led the
government to shut down re-
search involving dangerous mi-
crobes like the Ebola virus.
“Research is currently on hold,”
the United States Army Medical
Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases, in Fort Detrick, Md.,
said in a statement on Friday. The
shutdown is likely to last months,
Caree Vander Linden, a spokes-
woman, said in an interview.
The statement said the Centers
for Disease Control and Preven-
tion decided to issue a “cease and
desist order” last month to halt
the research at Fort Detrick be-
cause the center did not have “suf-
ficient systems in place to decon-
taminate wastewater” from its
highest-security labs.
But there has been no threat to
public health, no injuries to em-
ployees and no leaks of dangerous
material outside the laboratory,
Ms. Vander Linden said.
In the statement, the C.D.C.
cited “national security reasons”
as the rationale for not releasing
information about its decision.
The institute is a biodefense
center that studies germs and tox-
ins that could be used to threaten
the military or public health, and
also investigates disease out-
breaks. It carries out research
projects for government agencies,
universities and drug companies,
which pay for the work. It has
about 900 employees.
The shutdown affects a signifi-
cant portion of the research nor-

mally conducted there, Ms. Van-

der Linden said.

The suspended research in-

volves certain toxins, along with

germs called select agents, which

the government has determined

have “the potential to pose a se-

vere threat to public, animal or

plant health or to animal or plant

products.” There are 67 select

agents and toxins; examples in-

clude the organisms that cause

Ebola, smallpox, anthrax and

plague, and the poison ricin.

In theory, terrorists could use

select agents as weapons, so the

government requires any organi-

zation that wants to handle them

to pass a background check, regis-

ter, follow safety and security pro-

cedures, and undergo inspections

through a program run by the

C.D.C. and the United States De-

partment of Agriculture. As of

2017, 263 laboratories — govern-

ment, academic, commercial or

private — had registered with the

program.

The institute at Fort Detrick

was part of the select agent pro-

gram until its registration was

suspended last month, after the

C.D.C. ordered it to stop conduct-

ing the research.

The shutdown was first re-

ported on Friday by the Frederick

News-Post.

The problems date back to May

2018, when storms flooded and ru-

ined a decades-old steam steril-

ization plant that the institute had

been using to treat wastewater

from its labs, Ms. Vander Linden

said. The damage halted research

for months, until the institute de-

veloped a new decontamination

system using chemicals.

The new system required

changes in certain procedures in

the laboratories. During an in-

spection in June, the C.D.C. found

that the new procedures were not

being followed consistently. In-

spectors also found mechanical

problems with the chemical-

based decontamination system,

as well as leaks, Ms. Vander Lin-

den said, though she added that

the leaks were within the lab and

not to the outside world.

“A combination of things” led to

the cease and desist order, and the

loss of registration, she said.

Dr. Richard H. Ebright, a molec-

ular biologist and bioweapons ex-

pert at Rutgers University, said in

an email that problems with the

institute’s new chemical-based

decontamination process might

mean it would have to go back to a

heat-based system “which, if it re-

quires constructing a new steam

sterilization plant, could entail

very long delays and very high

costs.”

Although many projects are on

hold, Ms. Vander Linden said sci-

entists and other employees are

continuing to work, just not on se-

lect agents. She said many were

worried about not being able meet

deadlines for their projects.

Missteps have occurred at

other government laboratories,

including those at the Centers for

Disease Control and the National

Institutes of Health. And in 2009,

research at the institute in Fort

Detrick was suspended because it

was storing pathogens not listed

in its database. The army institute

also employed Bruce E. Ivins, a

microbiologist who was a leading

suspect — but who was never

charged — in the anthrax mailings

in 2001 that killed five people. Dr.

Ivins died in 2008, apparently by

suicide.

Pathogens Research Lab

Is Shut Over Safety Fears

By DENISE GRADY

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Army germ lab in Fort Detrick, Md., did

not have “sufficient systems in place to decontaminate wastewater” from its highest-security labs.

PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO — While much of the
nation’s attention was focused on
the gun massacres in El Paso and
Dayton, Ohio, last weekend, Chi-
cago was convulsed by its own
burst of violence — the worst
weekend the city has seen so far in
2019.
It was an extreme example of
the routine but devastating gun vi-
olence, often related to gang con-
flicts, that cities like Chicago, Balti-
more and St. Louis experience on a
regular basis. The police said sev-
en people were killed and 52
wounded by gunfire throughout
Chicago from Friday evening to
Sunday, including a 5-year-old boy
who was shot in the leg while sit-
ting in a car.
Early Sunday, 17 people were
shot in a period of two hours in a
small pocket on the city’s West

Side, turning residential blocks

into chaotic scenes of ambulances,

grieving family members and cars

pockmarked with bullets.

There were 32 separate shooting

incidents throughout the weekend,

the police said.

Gun violence in Chicago tends to

peak during the summer months,

when school is out, the tempera-

ture is high and residents spend

more time outside at social gather-

ings, which can be a magnet for

conflict. Shootings and homicides

have decreased in 2019, but there

have been at least 300 homicides

this year and 1,600 people shot, ac-

cording to The Chicago Tribune.

On Monday morning, Anthony

Guglielmi, a spokesman for the

Chicago Police Department,

tweeted a nearly minute-long au-

dio recording of rapid gunfire from

a shooting on the West Side on Sun-

day.

“Below is the sound that Chicago

needs to change its ways on how

we handle gun offenders,” he

wrote. “Audio from the tragic

shooting at 18th & Kildare yester-

day shows that criminals have no

deterrent to carrying illegal guns

in our city and this is what resi-

dents and police are up against.”

The Chicago police have fre-

quently criticized the Cook County

state’s attorney’s office for issuing

what they see as light sentences

and bonds for gun offenders.

Illinois has among the strictest

gun laws in the country, requiring

most residents to acquire a license,

or Firearm Owner’s Identification

card, before legally owning a fire-

arm or ammunition. Last year, law-

makers passed a measure requir-

ing a 72-hour waiting period for

gun purchases and a so-called red

flag law, which President Trump

endorsed in a speech on Monday

and that allows relatives and law

enforcement officials to ask courts

to confiscate firearms from people

deemed a threat to themselves or

others. But many of the illegal

weapons seized in Chicago come

from across the state line in Indi-

ana, where gun laws are less re-

strictive.

In one shooting last weekend,

suspects fired into a large group of

people who had gathered for a

block party. “Three cars pulled up

and they just started shooting ev-

erybody,” Keith Flowers, the father

of one of the victims, told report-

ers. His son, Demetrius Flowers,

33, was shot in the chest and did

not survive.

Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago

was so overwhelmed that its emer-

gency department temporarily

stopped accepting patients with

gunshot wounds in the early morn-

ing hours of Sunday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has vowed

to find solutions to the city’s prob-

lems with gun violence, which

vexed her predecessor, Rahm

Emanuel.

“Spent much of the weekend in

West Side where the City and com-

munity orgs are working closely

together to provide support to ar-

eas devastated by drugs and vio-

lence,” she wrote on Twitter on

Monday. “I am absolutely deter-

mined to do everything possible

help our communities heal.”

7 Killed in Chicago’s Worst Weekend of Violence in 2019

By JULIE BOSMAN

An overwhelmed

hospital stops taking

gunshot patients.