AG orders arrest of Prisons Director
Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito has issued an arrest order for the former Director of Prisons, Mario Acosta. The Attorney General will request coercive measures for Acosta who is accused of receiving a RD$1 million bribe from the alleged boss of a network of money launderers, Pascual Cordero Martinez, a.k.a. El Chino or El Gordo. Acosta, who had left the dependency of the Attorney General's office on 16 August, was arrested at 10am yesterday Tuesday 28 August, according to Diario Libre.
During a press conference, Dominguez Brito gave details of the investigation led by his office. It established that Cordero Martinez allegedly paid the money to Acosta in return for ensuring that the inmate was returned to La Victoria Prison from the Anamuya Correctional and Rehabilitation Center in Higuey.
He added that with a judge's order they taped dozens of telephone calls that the former official supposedly made to Cordero Martinez through inmate Jose Alexis Jimenez, who is currently in prison for the murder of Geuris Batista Michell in Villa Mella. Jimenez was sent to preventive custody in La Victoria, but the Attorney General says that Acosta managed to transfer him to the section for prisoners facing extradition in Najayo. In the recordings, the inmate is heard telling El Chino that Acosta "is one of us, from here to La Victoria, and from there to his house."
Cordero Martinez (El Chino) and another 15 people are accused of belonging to a criminal organization that carried out a series of crimes, including drug trafficking and money laundering of more than RD$250,000,000. Dominguez Brito added that a certificate from the penitentiary center in Higuey reveals that Acosta met in private with the alleged money launderer, and the authorities are investigating if the meeting was connected with an alleged escape plan in which the inmate would feign illness in order to be removed from the prison. The prosecutor also says that according to the investigation the former Director of Prisons scripted what Cordero Martinez was supposed to say when he pretended to be sick.
