San Juan, Puerto Rico — The Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) has filed a mandamus petition in San Juan Superior Court against the Treasury Department and its secretary, Ángel Pantoja Rodríguez, for refusing to release information on contracts, invoices, and total payments made to several private advertising firms.
On July 18, CPI reporter José M. Encarnación Martínez requested records from the Treasury Department covering 2022 to the present, including information on its advertising contractors Digimedia, Key Integrated Solutions, and KOI, for both the Electronic Lottery and the Traditional Lottery, along with other related documents.
Despite follow-ups by Encarnación Martínez and the Legal Aid Clinic at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law, Treasury officials have neither responded to the request nor provided the requested information.
“Public information belongs to the people, and this is a clear request for public data that has gone unanswered for two months,” said CPI Executive Director Carla Minet Santos. “Last year, we also sued this agency for similar information, and they were forced to release it. That disclosure revealed troubling contracting practices at the Puerto Rico Lottery. Knowing who is hired, for what purpose, and how much is paid is essential to ensure accountability and proper use of public funds,” she added.
In early September, Encarnación Martínez, along with reporters Vanessa Colón Almenas and Wilma Maldonado Arrigoitía, published an investigation titled Puerto Rico Lottery: A Jackpot of Public Money and Political Favors. The story detailed how Digimedia secured more than $47 million in Treasury contracts over the past six years. The advertising firm charged fixed fees and commissions for organizing staff parties, breakfasts, and luncheons at the Lottery Bureau, as well as for promotional materials purchased at nearly triple their market value and later distributed to agency employees.
This latest mandamus marks the CPI’s 50th lawsuit to secure access to public documents, and its third against the Treasury Department. It underscores the organization’s mission to advance investigative journalism and the public’s right to know, ensuring that citizens can scrutinize and evaluate government actions that affect them. In the first nine months of 2025, the CPI has sued the current administration six times to obtain public information, matching the number of lawsuits it filed against the administration of former Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia in his first year in office.
The CPI is represented in this case by attorneys Luis José Torres Asencio, Judith W. Berkan Barnett, and Steven P. Lausell Recurt of the Inter American University’s Access to Information Project, along with CPI attorney Carlos F. Ramos Hernández.
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