The legal team representing senator Felix Bautista, who has sued three book authors who wrote about the alledged irregularities around US$112 million Sun Land funding for the state university constructions, say that the defendants will not be able to use new evidence in the libel case.
Felix Bautista and The Sunland Group Corp sued Jaime Aristy-Escuder, Editorial Buho SRL, Jose Alejandro Ayuso and Andres Luciano Mateo Martinez on 31 October 2013 at the Florida Southern District Court, with presiding judge Donald L. Graham. Bautista accuses the defendants of assault, libel and slander.
Yesterday, lawyer Carlos Souffront, representing senator Felix Bautista, the former director of the Supervisory Office of Public Works of the Presidency during the Leonel Fernandez administrations, warned that all who have delivered “supposed proof” to plaintiff Jaime Aristy Escuder would be called to testify under oath at the Florida court. Nevertheless, he said if the information was not obtained by way of a Dominican court order, as reportedly is legal, whoever delivers the information could also be sued. The lawyer said that any new version of the book would not be admitted for the purposes of the suit.
“Apparently, those being sued think that they will win the suit in Florida by holding press conferences in the Dominican Republic. This is a very serious matter and we are sure that the judge will not allow the politicization of a suit that is so blunt and substantiated as that presented by the firm Gray Robinson representing Sun Land and senator Bautista,” he said.
“They will have to demonstrate that Felix Bautista and Sun Land appropriated 112 million dollars. That is the essence of the suit and it will be discussed in court, not at a press conference,” he said.
Recently, economist Aristy Escuder and lawyer Jose Alejandro Ayuso warned that they have more proof against the senator that they will present in the courts where they were sued for libel in Madrid and Florida and this will be included in a second edition of the book. They spoke at a press conference together with journalist Juan Taveras Hernandez (Juan TH), who has also been accused by the PLD senator. At a recent press conference to announce the new edition, the writers stated: “We are accused of slandering Bautista by saying that he violated the Presidential Power of Attorney granted by Leonel Fernandez on 2 May 2006, as was stated by then-Minister of Hacienda Vicente Bengoa on 7 February 2008. We also stated that the money obtained from the emission of public debt did not reach the government’s accounts in the Central Bank or at the Banco de Reservas,” they stated.
They vowed that they would go through with the court case. “We will do the work that the Dominican judiciary was not brave nor responsible enough to do,” they told Diario Libre.
www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2013/11/15/i411073_habra-otra-edician-lado-oscuro-sun-land.html
Abogado de Félix Bautista advierte llamarán a testificar a los que entregaron pruebas a Escuder
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/florida/flsdce/1:2013cv23958/430819