Former Holyoke, Massachusetts City Councilor Wilmer Puello-Mota has reportedly defected to Russia and is now living in Moscow, where he works for the Russian Defense Ministry, according to his Facebook profile. The 28-year-old was arrested in September 2020 in Warwick, Rhode Island, and charged with possession of child pornography. The 17-year-old victim said that Puello-Mota, who was 24 at the time, had sent her money via Venmo for sexually explicit photos though he knew she was underage. The former city councilor was scheduled to appear in court on January 9, 2024, but two days earlier, he boarded a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. In a March court filing, the Rhode Island Attorney General acknowledged that Puello Mota had either fled the country and joined the Russian military or invented the story to evade the case against him.