Juanita Elaine Anduze Proctor Benítez passed away on May 12, 2026, at the age of 84, in her home on St. Croix, USVI. She was born on May 18, 1941, the youngest daughter of 8 to the late Edna Bianca Forbes Anduze and Beverly Chauncey Anduze.
Juanita Elaine Anduze Proctor Benítez
She received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She later returned home and obtained the position of Personal Director for the Department of Health. She had over 30 years of service in the V.I. Government.
She is survived by her husband, Ramon Benitez; daughters, Phyllis Bianca Proctor and Linda Y. Proctor; grandson, Christopher Chauncey Cardozo; and daughter-in-law, Nancy A. Sullivan. From her passing siblings, she has numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, and special friends, too numerous to mention.
Her memorial services will be held on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, at the Lord God of Sabaoth Lutheran Church on 1120 Kings Street, Christiansted, USVI. Viewing begins at 9:00 am with service at 10:00 am. Interment will be at Kingshill Cemetery, Veterans’ new section.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Juanita’s memory can be made to the Alzheimer’s research organization. https://events.alz.org/s/10265/9761
Funeral arrangements are entrusted to James Memorial Funeral Home, Inc.
Luz Maria Christian Viera, aka “Mama, Mama Luz, and Guela”, La Grande Princess, passed away on May 13. She was 89 years old.
Luz Maria Christian Viera
She was preceded by spouse, Manuel Viera Sr.; mother,Aurelia Cordero Christian; father Genaro Christian; son, Luis Aurelio Viera; grandchildren, Ronald Javier Heredia, Arturo Bueno; sister, Ana Santiago; brothers Juan Christian, Genaro Christian; daughter in law, Damarys Heredia Viera, and son in law, Niels R. Thurland.
She is survived by daughters, Luz Maria Thurland, Gladys Manuela Mena; son, Manuel Viera Jr; grandchildren ,Jessalyn Viera, Karissa Thurland-Perez, Melissa Rosario, Nicholas Mena, Vanessa Thurland, Marcia Hopson, Luz M. Bueno, Joel Heredia, Aurora Bueno, Ashley Viera, Natasha Viera and Jemanuel Viera; great-grandchildren Nathaniel Zapata, Jahsai Rosario, Caliyah Helliger, Ajahni Rosario, Dakota Hopson III, Juan Llanes, Nicholas Llanes, Jay’lana Rivera, Nevan Haynes, Jay’vian Rivera, Nyack Nathaniel, Elijah Rosario, Jahniel Perez, Cole Hopson, Hunter Vagedes, Novah Haynes,Sarah Hopson, AlinaVagedes, Jubriel Jelili, Anastasia Bueno, Noriel Haynes and Amoura Campos; sister, Luz M. Christian; brothers, Angel Luis Christian, Jose Christian, David Christian, Carlos Christian; daughter-in law, Francesca Simmonds Viera; cousin and other relatives, Carmelo Christian and Family, Luis Felipe Viera and Family, Ruben Martinez and Family; godchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins and other relatives and friends too numerous to mention
Funeral service will be held on May 27 at James Memorial Chapel. Viewing begins at10 am, with service at 11 am. Interment will be held at Kingshill Cemetery.
Funeral arrangements are entrusted to James Memorial Funeral Home, Inc.
Pursuant to Title 31, Chapter 23, Section 236 of the Virgin Islands Code, the Virgin Islands Department of Property and Procurement on behalf of the Bureau of Corrections, requests bids for the following solicitation:
BD-26-150-1502-687- Purchase and Delivery of Groceries and Meats for the Bureau of Corrections in the St. Thomas/St. John and St. Croix District
Bids will be received by the Department of Property and Procurement, Division of Procurement, via the GVIBUY eProcurement system, through the following link: https://gvibuy.buyspeed.com/bso/.
TIMETABLE
Request for Information: Last day for request for written clarification will be Monday, June 1, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time.
Due Date: Bid submissions in GVIBUY are due no later than Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Atlantic Standard Time.
Publicly Open Bid Date: Bids will be publicly opened Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m., Atlantic Standard Time.
Prospective respondents must be registered with GVIBUY to gain access to GVI solicitations. For more information, please contact us at (340) 774-0828 or via email at gvibuy@dpp.vi.gov.
Attorney General Gordon Rhea has formally concluded that Brett “Mac” McClafferty is ineligible to serve in the Virgin Islands Legislature, issuing a legal opinion Monday that lays out what the Department of Justice describes as a lengthy Ohio criminal record involving felony convictions, fraud-related offenses, and crimes involving moral turpitude.
The opinion, addressed to Supervisor of Elections Caroline Fawkes, was requested after McClafferty picked up nomination papers in April to run for the Legislature. In the seven-page memorandum, DOJ attorneys concluded that Section 6(b) of the Revised Organic Act bars McClafferty from legislative office because he has been convicted of felonies and has not received a pardon restoring his civil rights.
The opinion arrives as McClafferty has publicly shifted his political focus toward the territory’s Delegate to Congress race — a move that raises a separate legal question because the federal qualifications governing the Delegate seat differ from the Revised Organic Act provisions governing the Legislature.
According to the DOJ opinion and attached court exhibits, attorneys identified convictions across multiple Ohio counties between 2015 and 2019, including offenses involving passing bad checks, theft, forgery, identity fraud, cocaine possession, and grand theft.
One exhibit includes a 2016 Geauga County conviction for fourth-degree felony passing bad checks. Another details a Portage County jury conviction involving forgery and theft offenses. Additional Summit County records show guilty pleas tied to felony cocaine possession and grand theft charges. The opinion repeatedly points to offenses involving fraud or deception.
“The offenses of Passing Bad Checks, Forgery, and Identity Fraud all include an intent to defraud as an element of the offense,” the opinion states, later adding that theft offenses involving deception also likely qualify as crimes of moral turpitude under Virgin Islands law.
To support that conclusion, DOJ attorneys cite prior Virgin Islands case law defining crimes of moral turpitude broadly to include crimes where fraud is either explicit or implicit in the nature of the offense.
The opinion also directly rejects arguments reportedly advanced by McClafferty’s attorney earlier this spring.
According to the DOJ memorandum, McClafferty’s attorney argued that some convictions had been reversed on appeal, that Ohio convictions should not count toward Virgin Islands eligibility standards, and that Ohio law restored his civil rights after completion of sentence.
The opinion rejects those arguments.
The opinion notes that appellate rulings attached to the filing dealt largely with sentencing disputes and jail-time credit calculations — not reversals of the underlying convictions themselves. The Attorney General’s Office also rejected the argument that only convictions handed down in Virgin Islands courts should count toward disqualification under Section 6(b).
“There is no reason to believe that Congress intended to permit felons and those otherwise convicted of crimes of moral turpitude to serve in the Virgin Islands Legislature so long as those convictions arose from criminal conduct in other parts of the United States,” the opinion states.
DOJ attorneys further argued that while Ohio may restore certain civil rights to former offenders after completion of sentence, the Revised Organic Act specifically requires a pardon restoring civil rights before someone convicted of felonies or crimes of moral turpitude can serve in the Legislature.
“McClafferty does not have a pardon,” the opinion states.
The legal opinion adds another layer to the scrutiny already surrounding McClafferty, who was arrested earlier this year by the VIPD Economic Crimes Unit in connection with what authorities described as an $888,500 fraud investigation involving counterfeit checks, fictitious bank drafts, and disputed financial transactions. McClafferty has denied wrongdoing in that case, which remains pending.
The Attorney General’s opinion itself does not remove McClafferty from a ballot or constitute a court ruling.
The opinion was released the same day McClafferty filed an emergency motion in Superior Court seeking permission to travel to St. Croix to meet with a prospective landlord for what court filings described as a possible campaign headquarters tied to his run for Delegate to Congress. In separate filings, McClafferty has also asked the court to modify the conditions of his release in the pending fraud case so he can travel more freely between districts while campaigning.
Court records show McClafferty is currently prohibited from leaving the St. Thomas-St. John District without permission because of the conditions tied to his pending criminal case.
As of Monday evening, however, McClafferty had not officially filed nomination papers for Delegate to Congress. Tuesday is the final day for candidates to file for the 2026 election cycle.
Brett “Mac” McClafferty, who is running for delegate to Congress while free on bail on grand larceny charges, filed an emergency motion Monday in V.I. Superior Court on St. Thomas, seeking permission to travel to St. Croix to meet with a landlord for a potential campaign headquarters.
McClafferty told the court in his motion that he had a 6 p.m. meeting with the landlord, had not secured overnight lodging but hoped to at the Buccaneer Resort, and would return to St. Thomas on Tuesday.
“It is necessary that the meeting be held today, May 18, 2026, or Defendant will lose this opportunity,” the motion stated.
There was no reply from the court on the docket Monday night, and it is unclear whether Judge Denise M. Francois granted McClafferty’s motion.
Monday’s motion followed one he filed Friday, asking the court to modify his pretrial release conditions that prevent him from leaving the St. Thomas-St. John District, and thus campaigning for office on St. Croix.
McClafferty, the co-owner of St. Thomas Social, a restaurant in Yacht Haven Grande, said that as a candidate for office he needs to search for a suitable campaign headquarters on St. Croix, “as well as a location for a St. Croix Social.”
“With his current release conditions, Defendant will not be able to effectively campaign or discover a campaign headquarters and must respectfully request that the Court modify his conditions of release to allow him to freely travel to St. Croix only in his role as a candidate for Congressional delegate,” according to Friday’s motion.
McClafferty was arrested Feb. 21 by the Virgin Islands Police Department’s Economic Crime Unit in connection with an $888,500 fraud investigation. Authorities allege that between January and June 2024, McClafferty deposited counterfeit and fictitious checks — including instruments drawn on entities in the British Virgin Islands — and issued bank drafts that were later returned for insufficient funds or subject to stop-payment requests. Police say funds were withdrawn and wired to third parties before the instruments were returned unpaid.
McClafferty — charged with grand larceny, passing or possession of forged bills, obtaining money by false pretenses, making and passing fictitious bills and notes, and drawing and delivering worthless checks — pleaded not guilty at his arraignment March 13 in Magistrate Court on St. Thomas and is free on $150,000 bail. He subsequently filed a lawsuit against Banco Popular, accusing it of negligence, defamation, abuse of process, false arrest and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The same day as his arraignment, McClafferty announced his run for Virgin Islands Senate in a Facebook post. However, he dropped that campaign after Supervisor of Elections Caroline Fawkes sought a legal opinion from Attorney General Gordon Rhea on whether candidates with felony records — McClafferty spent three years behind bars in Ohio on felony fraud and theft charges but said those convictions were overturned on appeal and resolved through misdemeanor pleas — may run for public office.
While McClafferty asserted that he was eligible, he announced he would instead campaign for the territory’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where having a criminal history is not a disqualifier.
However, among the conditions of his release on the bank fraud charges, McClafferty may not travel outside the St. Thomas-St. John District without permission of the court, leaving him unable, for now, to take his campaign to St. Croix.
A discovery conference in the case was set for May 7 but was postponed to June 23 after McClafferty received permission to travel to California from May 4 to 10 to help a cousin who was recovering from surgery.
McClafferty mentioned that trip in his motion to modify the conditions of his release, writing that he followed the court’s rules in that instance and is not a flight risk “as he has ties to the community and has no intention of abandoning his life and family in St. Thomas.”
Judge Francois had not ruled on McClafferty’s motion as of Monday night. However, Assistant Attorney General Patricia Lynn Prior “advised that she objects to this request without further explanation,” the motion stated.
McClafferty also has Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases pending in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. A confirmation hearing was set for Monday in the Chapter 13 case, which the trustee has argued should be dismissed or converted to Chapter 7 because McClafferty has debts of $3.6 million that “significantly exceed” the statutory thresholds, he has “failed to provide a full and candid disclosure of his financial condition,” and may be shielding his assets and income from the trustees and creditors.
Additionally, 17 of his alleged victims — investors in his defunct Mac Private Equity firm who say their money vanished, including two who were awarded judgments in Virgin Islands court — have joined the call to convert the Chapter 13 case.
In an objection to their motion, McClafferty said they “attempt to transform a disputed business relationship with a corporate entity into personal liability of the Debtor and, in doing so, rely on unproven allegations of fraud, selective characterizations of prior litigation, and assumptions regarding intent that are unsupported by a developed evidentiary record.”
The outcome of the Chapter 13 confirmation hearing was not available on the court docket as of Monday night.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. announced Monday via a press release that he will be meeting with U.S. Coast Guard officials regarding the April 30 Captain of the Port orders directing the M/V Water Spirit II and BVI M/V Admirals Pride to stop their current Mediterranean-style mooring operations at Pier 10 in San Juan.
Bryan is asking the Coast Guard to consider a temporary variance that would allow the vessels to continue operating while all parties work together on a safe, practical, and lasting solution, according to the release.
“We respect the Coast Guard’s authority and we share its commitment to maritime safety,” Bryan said. “At the same time, we have to recognize the real-world impact this decision could have on the people of the Virgin Islands. This route moves food, refrigerated goods, vehicles, appliances, construction materials, industrial parts and household items that our residents and businesses rely on. We are asking for a fair opportunity to work through the issue together without cutting off an essential service before a workable alternative is in place.”
Bryan hopes that the meeting will result in the Coast Guard allowing the vessels to continue operating temporarily while safety and mooring concerns are addressed, the release stated.
“The issue is about…protecting a supply chain that affects the cost, availability and timely movement of goods across the Territory. Any sudden disruption…could have consequences for residents waiting on household items, businesses filling orders, grocery stores stocking shelves and contractors trying to keep projects moving,” he said.
Bryan extended thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Juan for its continued partnership and stated he is encouraged that the Coast Guard has agreed to meet with him to discuss a path forward.
Prof. Richard Albert, University of Texas at Austin, gave the 6th V.I. Constitutional Convention a thorough review of its work to date. (Photo courtesy the University of Texas at Austin)
Delegates of the sixth Virgin Islands Constitutional Convention, in a Saturday plenary session, heard a lengthy and detailed review of their work to date. The review was delivered by University of Texas professor Richard Albert, a scholar of constitutions from across the United States and around the world.
More than three months have passed since delegates completed revisions to a previous draft created by the fifth Constitutional Convention in 2009. If the new document meets approval, it could become the U.S. Virgin Islands’ law of the land.
Albert encouraged delegates to simplify the language in the draft and pay close attention to sections flagged for federal-level objections.
“There are some provisions in the draft (sic) you seem to sit at a little uneasily with the requirements of federal supremacy. I’ve identified those provisions in my report,” Albert said, “but I just wanted to flag that issue now, because federal supremacy is not optional, and the language of the Constitution…is required to reflect that rule. It’s not just in a single provision at the end of the Constitution, but in every single section… ”
“The drafts you prepared are more ambitious than any state constitution,” he said. “I’m sympathetic; you need protections, but it’s worth noting that a more detailed document like this one carries a higher litigation risk and a higher financial exposure than the average state constitution.”
Albert added encouraging words for those who spent months debating and revising the previous draft. He encouraged them to express their views on how the final draft should read while allowing others who disagree the same privilege.
“None of these suggestions requires you to change your mind about anything. They simply are intended to invite you to just more directly express what you’ve already decided,” he said, adding that time spent now in revising the draft is time saved later in litigation.
The professor also suggested that once the Virgin Islands’ constitution gains approval, it will send a vital message to the world that people holding different views can work together for a common cause. Among the nations adopting constitutions of late, he said, none promote democratic forms of government.
“Your work is important, not just for these islands, but for the country, the world,” the professor said.
Albert serves as director of Constitutional Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and is a founding director of the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism.
Date: Monday, May 18, 2026
Pursuant to Title 31, Chapter 23, Section 236 of the Virgin Islands Code, the Virgin Islands Department of Property and Procurement on behalf of the Department of Public Works requests bids for the following solicitation: BD-26-610-6102-658- Mechanical Roadside Maintenance, Gut Cleaning & Cemetery Cleaning Services, St. Croix, USVI
Bids will be received by the Department of Property and Procurement, Division of Procurement, via the GVIBUY eProcurement system, through the following link: https://gvibuy.buyspeed.com/bso/.
TIMETABLERequest for Information: Last day for request for written clarification will be Tuesday, June 2, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time.
Due Date: Bid submissions in GVIBUY are due no later than Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time.
Prospective respondents must be registered with GVIBUY to gain access to GVI solicitations. For more information, please contact us at (340) 774-0828 or via email at gvibuy@dpp.vi.gov.
Lisa M. Alejandro
Commissioner
Sixty-nine-year-old Hubert Charles was arrested May 16, charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition, reported the Virgin Islands Police Department.
His arrest followed a call the 911 Emergency Call Center received from an individual requesting an escort to her home due to a domestic incident involving a male acquaintance, who was reportedly violent and in possession of a firearm, the police report stated.
Officers subsequently made contact with the suspect, Charles, and a firearm was recovered inside the residence and Charles admitted that he had brought it there. Charles does
not have a license to carry a firearm or ammunition in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the report.
Charles was booked, and unable to post bail set at $50,000, he was transported to the John A. Bell Correctional Facility pending his advice of rights hearing.
Con profundo dolor y cariñoso recuerdo, anunciamos el fallecimiento de Margarita Peguero, quien partió de esta vida el 5 de mayo de 2026, a los 65 años.
Margarita Peguero
Nacida el 25 de octubre de 1960, Margarita fue una mujer cariñosa cuya amabilidad, calidez y espíritu amable conmovieron a todos los que la conocieron.
Margarita fue una esposa entregada, una madre cariñosa, abuela y una amiga muy apreciada. Era conocida por el amor que daba tan libremente, la fuerza que mostraba a su familia y el consuelo que aportaba a quienes la rodeaban. Su hogar era un lugar de bienvenida, y su corazón siempre estaba abierto a ayudar a los demás. Creó recuerdos duraderos gracias a su compasión, risas y dedicación inquebrantable a sus seres queridos. Su presencia traía alegría a las reuniones familiares, y su amor seguirá viviendo en el corazón de todos los que tuvieron la bendición de conocerla.
Le precedieron en la muerte su querida madre, Lucila Peguero, y su padre, Andrés Rijos.
Deja para atesorar su memoria a su devoto esposo, José De León y familiares; sus queridos hijos, Ishmael Peguero y Ezequiel Robles; queridos familiares y amigos en la República Dominicana, demasiado numerosos para mencionar, que lloran su partida y guardarán para siempre su recuerdo.
Aunque ya no está con nosotros en persona, el amor que compartió, las lecciones que enseñó y los recuerdos que creó permanecerán con su familia para siempre. Se la echará mucho de menos y se recordará con cariño para sempre.
Se celebrará una velatorio en su honor el viernes 22 de mayo de 2026, de 15:00 a 17:00., en la capilla de la funeraria Divina.
