The Justice Department (Public Ministry) has filed, as they had promised last week, the formal accusations against persons indicted in the murder case of Yuniol Ramírez, the lawyer who leaked the corruption in OMSA to the press and is suspect to have been killed for his efforts. The indictments do not include the former director of the Metropolitan Office of Bus Service (OMSA), Manuel Rivas.
The prosecutor for the case, Rosalba Ramos, the District Attorney for the National District, told reporters that the Justice Department had determined that Argenis Contreras and Yuniol Ramírez had a “parallel relationship” whereby the authorities were able to hear how Contreras, the defendant, provided the victim with privileged information regarding the negotiations taking place with the accused in the OMSA case and the most convenient method for obtaining money, as he, Contreras, was the assistant to Rivas.”
The DA also said that they could prove that the defendant Argenis Contreras González, met Yuniol Ramírez several times at the Professor’s Club of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), according to the security tapes of the club. The Justice Department says that its investigation did not establish any ties between Manuel Rivas and the murder victim, but they did find evidence sufficient to indict him on charges of criminal association, bribery, corruption, fraud against the state, corruption in duplicity of payments, the same as in the processes of urgency (in violation of the protocols for public tenders) and criminal association to ‘knowingly issuing an unfair decision”, to cheat and embezzle the Dominican state.
Regarding the case of Faustino Rosario Díaz, the former financial director of OMSA, the DA said that he is being accused of criminal association, corruption on fraud charges related to purchases made directly and without contracts, double billing of many of these purchases, illicit enrichment from corrupt practices and money laundering.
Eddy Rafael Santana Zorilla has been charged with bribery, violation of commerce and investment laws against the Dominican state. In addition to Argenis Contreras, who is in the United States fighting his extradition, there are several others accused of criminal association, murder, and hiding the body of the victim.
The judiciary now has ten days to assign preliminary hearings in order to decide whether the case will move on to a full trial.
But that is not all. Because of the very charged political implications of this case, with the top positions in the OMSA bus agency held by high up members of the ruling PLD, the family of the victim has come out with charges that the Justice Department has left out Rivas from complicity in the murder because of his close ties with the PLD. The declaration by lawyers representing the family told reporters that the District Attorney is trying to remove Rivas, the OMSA director, Faustino Rosario, the financial director and Eddy Rafael Zorilla from accusations of homicide and full involvement in the case. ”What the DA did was, by order of the Attorney General, try to exonerate her political comrade, removing him from complicity in the murder, so he can be freed, because with these accusations of “knowingly issuing an unfair decision”, the most he can get is a one year jail sentence.” This compares to a usual 20-30 years sentences for murder.
Finally, the case files for the corruption case will once again change jurisdictions, because judges in the National District determined that they cannot hear the case because the crime took place in West Santo Domingo. This is because the District Attorney for the National District did not include Manuel Rivas, or Faustino Rosario in the murder indictment she presented to the court, but rather issued indictments for various types of corruption to the other two men that puts the focus on western Santo Domingo, where the offices of the OMSA bus agency are located.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
11 March 2019