Francisco Besosa

Besosa was born on October 26, 1949, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the oldest son of Frank A. Besosa and Augusta V. (Tuty) Stubbe. He attended primary schools in San Juan, and graduated in 1967 from the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. He then attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, receiving an Artium Baccalaureus degree with a concentration in History in 1971. After college, because he had a very low draft number (7), he enlisted in the United States Army under the college option program to attend the United States Army Officer Candidate School. In April, 1972, he graduated from the 23-week course of the United States Army Infantry Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Military Intelligence Branch. After completing the Counterintelligence Officer and Personnel Security Adjudications courses at the United States Army Intelligence Center and School in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, he was posted to Detachment R, 500th Military Intelligence Group in Okinawa, Japan, where he served as Deputy Chief of the detachment's counterintelligence field office until 1974. Besosa was then reassigned as the Assistant S-2 (Intelligence and Security Officer) of the 313th Military Intelligence Battalion in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. When the 504th Military Intelligence Group was activated in Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, Besosa was assigned as the Group's S-2, with the additional duty of the Group's Race Relations/Equal Opportunity Officer. In 1976, he was honorably discharged as a Captain, and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. In March, 2007, Besosa was elected to the Infantry Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame. Once discharged from the Army, Besosa attended Georgetown University Law Center, receiving his Juris Doctor in 1979. == Career ==

After approving the Puerto Rico bar examination, he worked as an attorney in some of the leading law firms in San Juan, eventually becoming a partner. He was also an Assistant United States Attorney from 1983 to 1986. While in private practice and as an Assistant United States Attorney, he litigated and tried all types of cases in the civil and commercial areas of the law. Besosa was lead counsel or actively participated in various of the large complex litigation cases filed in the courts of Puerto Rico, including the E.I. DuPont de Nemours Benlate Fungicide Litigation and the Río Piedras Humberto Vidal Building Explosion Litigation. In 1994, he was a founding partner of the Adsuar, Muñiz, Goyco & Besosa, P.S.C., law firm and chaired its Litigation and Trial Practice Department and the Recruiting Committee. He took the oath of office on October 2, 2006. Previously, he presided over the trial of former senator Héctor Martínez, whom he sentenced to a four-year federal prison term. Judge Francisco A. Besosa sentenced record producer and president of the record label 'Pina Records' Rafael "Raphy" Pina-Nieves to a term of 41 months in prison, 3 years of supervised release, 200 hours of community service and a fine of one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) for firearms violations being a convicted felon, and possession of a machinegun. Pina-Nieves was found guilty by a federal jury on December 22, 2021. ==See also==