The first part of today’s “Que se dice” (What’s being said) column takes on the Justice Department’s announced plea-bargain offer to the nearly five dozen former and current police officials that have been indicted on charges of using recovered stolen property for their own benefit. The author called the plea bargain, reported as much as 2,000 hours of community service and an admission of guilt, as an unprecedented event in Dominican jurisprudence: a plea-bargain approved by the new Penal Code’s procedures.
If these officials can reach an agreement by 2:00 o’clock this afternoon, they will be subjected to a series of “sanctions” that could include among other things, restrictions on travel, on associating with certain people, or abusing alcoholic beverages.
In no part are the victims of the alleged crimes mentioned: the owners of the vehicles that were twice stolen. Once by car thieves and the second time by the police officers who used them after they were recovered.
The car owners should have something to say in this matter-for “obvious reasons” says the columnist, while commenting that it was possible that the people that wrote the new code did not consider this possibility.
A similar theme is carried in the headlines of El Caribe that state that the plea-bargaining is dividing the accused police officers, and as the story went to press only 35 had taken the deal. According to John Garrido, the prosecuting attorney, there will be a meeting today with the lawyers that are representing those officials willing to take the plea bargain and this will entail an admission of guilt as to the criminal character of their actions.
The NGO Participacion Ciudadana (Citizen Participation) has rejected the very idea of a plea-bargain ” because dozens of citizens have been robbed twice, because those whose job it is to protect and help them, betrayed the trust of the citizenry, by keeping the recovered vehicles, lying and erasing evidence.”