Supreme Court judge Frank Soto has withdrawn from hearing the case about the property company Rofi, represented by shareholder Senator Felix Bautista.
He took the decision after being disqualified by the president of the National Lawyers’ Grouping (CONA), Junio Ramirez, who said that Soto had met with Bautista’s lawyers. He also claimed that like Bautista, Judge Soto was a member of the PLD Central Committee.
The case has therefore been adjourned until the Supreme Court of Justice appoints another judge or decides to let Soto hear the case.
Soto said that Ramirez was speculating that he had met with the Senator’s lawyers on Monday 20 October 2014, saying that he was in Cedimat for health reasons, and then had dinner with his wife and went home.
As far as the allegations that he was a member of the PLD, he said that he formally resigned from the Central Committee in 2009, when he entered the prosecution service, and asked the PLD to amend their records, as the list of members still includes people who have died.
The request to disqualify the judge was made after the Senator’s lawyers, Juan Antonio Delgado, Marino Feliz Rodriguez, Ramon Nunez and Pedro Balbuena asked the court to dismiss CONA, the Citizen’s Movement against Corruption (C-3) and the Dominican Alliance Against Corruption (Adocco) saying that they were not part of the process.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2014/10/21/342290/Juez-se-abstiene-de-conocer-caso-del-senador-Felix-Bautista