Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa threatened to bring yet another charge against the embattled newspaper El Universo after it published a provocative letter by an assembly member, according to the group Fundamedios.

Correa issued the statement from New York over the state-run radio and television program, Enlace Cuidadano. The president threatened to charge the newspaper for publishing a letter written by legislator Cynthia Viteri in which she defends her mother, president of the Guayas Court of Justice, María Leonor Jiménes, who Correa criticized in a previous radio broadcast. El Universo currently faces a crippling $40 million fine and prison sentences for editors and a columnist after publishing a 2010 opinion piece.

Viteri called the Andean president "an ignorant coward, hypocrite and a bully" in the letter. Correa tweeted that the newspaper "should not publish insults."