Prosecutor in slaying of gay Puerto Rican rapper Kevin Fret says she was instructed to stop investigating
Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández said his department will look into allegations by prosecutor Betzaida Quiñones Rodríguez "to assess whether there was any illegal action.”
The prosecutor assigned to investigate the killing of gay Puerto Rican rapper Kevin Fret in 2019 said this week that she was instructed to stop her probe and was never given an explanation.
Betzaida Quiñones Rodríguez made the allegations in multiple local media outlets in Puerto Rico. She said the investigation was shut down just three months after Fret's death by order of Olga Castellón, who was the chief prosecutor at the Puerto Rico Justice Department at the time.
Fret was shot multiple times while riding his motorcycle on January 2019 in Santurce, a neighborhood in the San Juan metropolitan area. No one has been arrested or indicted in connection to his death.
The 24-year-old rapper had recently broken into the Latin trap music scene with his debut single “Soy Así,” which translates to “I’m this way,” a song that celebrates being unapologetic about one’s life. This was a sentiment Fret subscribed to and he encouraged others to do the same as an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community.
While Quiñones Rodríguez said she received her instructions from Castellón, "I cannot separate from this the secretary of justice at the time, Wanda Vázquez, because the chief prosecutor reports to the secretary of justice," Quiñones Rodríguez told Puerto Rico's largest daily newspaper, El Nuevo Día, in Spanish. "Since this is a case of high public interest, there had to be constant communication between the chief prosecutor and the secretary of justice."
Vázquez was Puerto Rico’s secretary of justice from 2017 to 2019, but later became the governor of Puerto Rico after embattled Gov. Ricardo Rosselló was forced to resign over his involvement in a chat scandal that triggered masses of outraged Puerto Ricans to take the streets, demanding his ouster. She governed until the end of 2020.
Fret's case gained more prominence when his mother, Hilda Rodríguez, publicly accused reggaeton star Jan Carlos Ozuna, known artistically as Ozuna, and his manager, Vicente Saavedra, of being involved in her son's killing.
Ozuna had accused Fret of extortion. Fret was allegedly asking Ozuna for money in exchange of not publishing damming information about the reggaeton singer.