Talk:Xavier Romeu

Fugitive?
Mr. Romeu was never a "fugitive". The Justice Department, knowing how to reach him as well as his attorneys, Frankie Rebollo and Jose Andreu-Fuentes, did not advise him that charges were to be filed so that he could be present at the time of filing, which is SOP in white collar crime indictments in Puerto Rico. They took the unusual step of indicting him in absentia. Whether DOJ knew that the date they had chosen to indict him was during his honeymoon remains to be determined. It was reported that Mr. Romeu has cut short his honeymoon trip abroad to appear in court on Monday, three business days after he found out while abroad that he had been indicted in absentia. He's not in hiding nor is he on the lam and can hardly be called a "fugitive" after knowing these facts without showing a bias against a presumedly innocent citizen.Pr4ever 14:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Again may I appeal to the conscience of all the contributors to this discussion that Wikipedia ought not to be used to try in print a person who is currently undergoing trial procedings. All the supposed documentation that has been supplied arises from newspaper article. I have personally reviewed all the articles and they all read like editorials rather than statements of accepted fact or truth.

The Blue Ribbon committee was disbanded without producing a single conviction based on their recommendations. The Justice Department dismissed their allegations, which carried no legal weight.

Why can we not be good Puerto Rican patriots and allow the allegations to be vented in court and settled by a judge and jury.

It is moreover very sad that one of the contributors chooses the name, PedroRosello, the leader of the statehood cause. That is the level to which our country is descending. We could very easily start a page on their current leader, publishing all the articles regarding the 2 year investigation by a federal grand jury and therby contaminate and bias the potential jury pool. But we will not to such base tactics. There are many potential crimes in his case. Yet we prefer to let justice follow its course. Let no one be judged by journalistic, opinion and innuendo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barendfabritius (talk • contribs) 22:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Editing fight
As the author of the original stub/article of Mr. Romeu back in July, I would ask the several Wikipedia fans who have been trying to use this article as a forum for their political/personal fights or to try to prosecute/defend in this forum the charges filed against him, to refrain from doing so.

I would particularly invite forum participants to refrain from deleting relevant facts that are sourced or a matter of public record.

For example, it is a well-known fact that during the operation of the so-called "Blue Riboon Committee" several witnesses or targets requested to record the proceedings. Committee members and staff refused to allow that. In Puerto Rico, the content of all non-penal hearings, such as legislative investigations, Puerto Rico Civil Rights Commission, etc., hearings are preserved in an audio or video recording. All penal hearings are either recorded by the courts administration or defendants, in the case of "Rule 6/probable cause" hearings are allowed to record proceedings. This fact should not have been redacted by one of the forum participants hostile to Mr. Romeu.

A second example is the redaction of the reference that Mr. Romeu's charges were filed in absentia. Several months back, a great public debate on several instances of unnecessary filings in absentia led Attorney General Sánchez Ramos to reinstitute the rule that prosecutors will no longer file in absentia unless reasonable attempts to contact the accused or their attorney had not resulted in their voluntary appearance, obviously excepting cases of violence and other dangerous crimes where the accussed could flee. Mr. Romeu's charges were filed in absentia, in spite of the fact that his legal counsel had been in contact with the Justice Department, that there were no extraordinary circumstances requiring immediate action, and that Mr. Romeu was in the middle of his honeymoon. These relevant facts were improperly redacted from the article.

Among the consequences of the in absentia filing are: (1) that the judge is not exposed to exculpatory evidence that may lead to a refusal to charge the accused of wrongdoing, and (2) that the accused is denied the opportunity to record a proceeding that the courts don't preserve on tape, thus being denied knowledge of what was said and what purported evidence was presented to the judge.

I would strongly suggest that the partisans who have developed a "shooting war" for political or personal reasons in this article (a look at the fact that most of their Wikipedia contributions are Romeu-related attests to the fact that they are partisans and that their virtually sole motive to participate is to defend or attack Mr. Romeu) vent their love or anger, sourced or not, on this discussion page, and then allow more objective editors to actually edit the article.

Otherwise, measures may be taken to freeze the article during an appropriate "cooling period", perhaps until Mr. Romeu's charges are dismissed or otherwise dealt with by the Puerto Rico courts. Pr4ever 12:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality and Accuracy
The neutrality and accuracy of this article are disputed. There appears to be an edit war between to vastly different sets of information. Looking for help from someone who can research the subject. - Djgranados 05:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit war and page protection
Note: This is an almost word-to-word copy of my message left at User talk:Desecheo00907, which he/she later erased (diff).

This article currently appears to be engaged in an edit war according to the additions and reverts that various users have made on the article. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If they continue, they may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. (Template:uw-3rr).

To all users, please stop adding unreferenced and controversial information about the Blue-Ribbon Committee members in the Xavier Romeu article. That article is about the Xavier Romeu, and only Romeu. If the Committee investigated him improperly, then you should provide sources, since Xavier Romeu and all the members of the Committee as well as the Governor are living persons (see Biographies of living persons). You should not stray from the subject, including your views as to why the Committee acted improperly and adding additional unreferenced examples which have nothing to do with the subject of the article. You must maintain a neutral point of view, including any and all sides to the issue, be it the investigation of Romeu or the Committee itself.

I removed the following statements because I believe they violated several Wikipedia policies (WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:OR please, take time to review these policies ).


 * Members of the Committee received public money compensation yet refused to abide with laws and regulations related to receipt of public monies, including reports to the appropriate Government agencies. This completely deviates from the article since it talks about their overall work, not just of their investigation of Romeu, and also directly attacks the members by saying they acted illegally or committed illegal acts. This must be sourced.


 * ...a politically engineered group of private partisans appointed by a former Governor (who decided not to seek re-election after one controversial term in office, This appears to be original research, and the controversial term in office statement is, to say the least, controversial in and of itself. Many governors have had controversial terms, but it's completely subjective, and we can't go around writing about it in other articles. It only belongs in the Governor's article if it's sourced, otherwise it would be WP:OR (i.e. implying that they were controversial, and that the investigation of Romeu was therefore wrong or controversial).


 * Partisan(s) This word is used frequently, and it denotes a negative description of a public official. Therefore, to maintain NPOV, I have removed all instances from all sides.


 * The Committee was repeatedly and publicly criticized by the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico and the Ethics Office of Puerto Rico. Sources are needed to prove that the committee was in fact publicly criticized by these government agencies.

I also took the time to add citeneeded templates where possibly, but not overtly controversial statements are included.

As you can see, my edits to the Legal proceedings section removed controversial statements yet did not limit its information. The reader still knows that he was investigated, these were contested, and that no charges were brought against him.

I hope this answers any questions about my edits to the article. Be advised that my edits were made to enforce 4 of Wikipedia's most important policies. I have protected the page to prohibit the re-inclusion of these statements (word-for-word), as has been done consistently. I am also reporting this incident to Requests for checkuser, since I see numerous new accounts used to make the exact same edits over and over.

Don't feel discouraged to keep contributing to this article, as long as you abide by Wikipedia's principles and policies. Protection at this time is not an endorsement of the current version, so I expect suggestions from users on how to proceed at this time. Please, if you have any suggestions, post them here or leave me a message at my talk page. I'll be glad to help. If you find a source to add a neutral and verifiable statement, by all means let me know and I will include it. If you think the current version of the article has a statement which should be removed because of policy, let me know and I will remove it immediately.

This protection is the last resort to this war, and it is not an act of punishment, but rather an enforcement of policy to assure that any new edits  must  be made as result of consensus. Please start the discussion on how to improve this article below, and hopefully we can stop fighting a senseless battle which, after hours of edits and reverts, will undoubtedly end in a stalemate. Thanks, Cheers, and Take care... - Mtmelendez (Talk 00:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The current article summarizes undisputed facts and presents a NPOV. The fact that Mr. Romeu has been investigated for certain actions is a fact. Quoted sources (which are being constantly erased by vandals) include the Associated Press and WOW News (which is affiliated to mainstream, conservative-leaning Casiano Communications).

I welcome Mtmelendez intervention as well as NPOV contributions from responsible wiki contributors… but the edits by some of the vandals at work here are shameless political propaganda and completely against wiki policies.

I look forward to the continued improvement of this and all Puerto Rico related articles.

Saludos, PR —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterRosello (talk • contribs) 00:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia, through its editor has chosen to freeze a set opinions precisely at the time that the legal action against Mr. Romeu is taking place. To publish only this version of events is unfair. This may have the unwanted effect of interfering with the legal process in Puerto Rico. It biases and contaminates public opinion and it ultimately may influence the opinion of the selected jury. All the public allegations that Wikipedia has published refer to opinions in the press. The alleged charges have never been taken up nor proven in a court of law. Wikipedia must is in the tradition of publishing facts and not opinion. Otherwise, it will lose credibility. An encyclopedia, by definition, publishes established fact and not poliitcal or journalistic opinion. Wikipedia, by publishing opinion, contradicts its own mission. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, a court of law or an editorial or op-ED page.

I again appeal to your conscience and to your faith in the legal system of Puerto Rico. Just publish the non-controversial facts: his education and his government and legal work. Anything else is speculative and very damaging to your own reputation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barendfabritius (talk • contribs) 21:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't mind my reputation, I'm just here to make better articles. I suggest you draft proposals below, exactly as you'd like written in the article with sources, and we can discuss here to include it, not include it, or modify it. To tell you the truth, I know little about this person or his credentials, history, beliefs, etc. I'm just trying to uphold policies.


 * If you provide a draft, and it's nuetral and sourced, we'll discuss it and then I'll include it. No problems. I'll try researching to add some stuff, but I'll add it to this talk page first and let you guys decide. We must work on this together. - Mtmelendez (Talk 01:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

What a character this romeu fellow. Check out these press articles from Puerto Rico's mainstream papers: http://blueribbonpr.org/noticias/starcom.php —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.179.191.2 (talk) 23:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Section break
I removed unsourced, possibly inflammatory information in the article. As this comment points out, the subject of the article is currently under trial, and this type of information cannot be included in the article without sources. Any suggestions on how to proceed are welcome. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 01:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Here are sources for the comments removed: 1) government credit card use for personal expenses (a news article from Primera Hora dated October 11th 2003 : http://blueribbonpr.org/noticias/starcom.php  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterRosello (talk • contribs) 02:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


 * How would you draft the sentence? Remember, we must be neutral. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 02:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

"Among the controversies were Mr. Romeu's use of government credit cards for personal expenses and the creation and management of the PRIIF."

Lets extract the "extravagant" which is subjective. What do you think?

Source for second removed statement: The Committee concluded that Mr. Romeu improperly disbursed approximately $30 million in PRIIF funds to private companies by issuing 24 grant checks during the last two days of December 2000 after his New Progressive Party (PNP) lost the general elections in November

http://blueribbonpr.org/informes/9-PRIIF%20II%20-%20Informe%202003-04a.pdf

page 4 last paragraph. This is the actual Blue Ribbon report.

The fact that Mr. Romeu has been investigated for these actions and that the committee concluded these were improper is a fact and is not subject to interpretation. I respectfully request you consider reverting your latest edits now that the statements have been properly sourced.


 * I'm not reverting my edits since, as it was, it was violating policy. But this is a good start. Yes, any subjective term should not be included, just the facts. I would also like for other users to participate in the discussion, including those which did not originally agree with the article. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 02:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

"If you provide a draft, and it's nuetral and sourced, we'll discuss it and then I'll include it." Flip flopping on us MtM.... You have sourced, neutral POV language here. Is that the policy? Are you now imposing your own criteria or still upholding wiki policy?


 * Careful. As far as I'm concerned, we've done everything I said we should except one thing. Discuss. I wanted all parties to reach an agreement, which includes those in favor and those in opposition of providing the controversial content. That way, we'll assure that only the most neutral and verifiable information will be posted.


 * As for your comments... What? Flip flopping? Imposing my own criteria? I've been working in Wikipedia for more than 1 1/2 years, and I've never done anything that would even come close to what you're saying. I will not do it in the future, and I'm certainly not doing it now. Please, in the future, be more careful with your comments. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 10:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Dont fall off your chair partner... just some constructive criticism. you done a good job here. just took you a while to add back the sourced content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterRosello (talk • contribs) 10:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)