In his second hour-long presentation in his defense in court on Monday, 23 November 2020, Odebrecht representative Angel Rondón said he was paid US$79.2 million for his work on behalf of the company. He denied the payment was for bribes. He told the First Collegiate Court of the National District that is hearing his case that the amount was confirmed and certified by the Superintendence of Banks.
Since the case was first heard in a Dominican court in 2017, Rondón has always said he was paid for his services and has demanded proof the money was for bribes. Rondón now says the prosecutors should interrogate others on the bribes Odebrecht has admitted to paying.
The case is a follow up to original hearings in a New York City Court that ended in December 2016 with the revelation that the Brazilian company had accepted it paid US$92 million in bribes to expedite contracting in the Dominican Republic. In a subsequent deal with former Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez, Odebrecht agreed to pay US$184 million in compensation to the Dominican government over eight years so that Odebrecht officers not need to testify in the Dominican Republic. Of the amount, the corporation has paid US$60 million.
Speaking in his defense in court, Rondon had said that if the Odebrecht top executive in the Dominican Republic, Marcos Vasconcelos Cruz, had spoken the political system would have collapsed.
Taking Rondon up on the statement, the new case prosecutor Wilson Camacho requested that Vasconcelos Cruz be incorporated as a witness in the background trial in the US$92 million bribes case.
Camacho is the new head of the Specialized Prosecutor for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca). He asked the First Collegiate Court of the National District to incorporate the testimony of Marcos Vasconcelos Cruz as new evidence to clarify some questions raised by the accused Angel Rondón during his defense on Thursday, 19 November 2020. Rondon had stated that Vasconcelos Cruz was allowed to leave the country because otherwise, the government of former President Danilo Medina and the entire Dominican political system would collapse.
“Let the truth be known, this Public Ministry is not afraid of the truth, let Marcos Vasconcelos Cruz come, and let the sea come in if it has to enter,” said Camacho.
He said that since Rondón said that Vasconcelos Cruz can clarify some things in this process, the incorporation of his testimony “is manifestly useful in clarifying the truth about the charges by itself.”
“It has been the defendant who has raised this scenario … we cannot waste this opportunity and be irresponsible,” he added.
Camacho told judges Esmirna Giselle Méndez, Tania Yunes and Jissel Naranjo of the First Collegiate Court of the National District that “they have the duty not to hinder the search for truth in this process.”
The request made by the Public Prosecutor’s Office comes after Rondón refused to be interrogated by the accusatory body, after making a voluntary declaration. This was admitted by the judges hearing the case.
Nevertheless, Camacho’s request met with rejection by Rondón’s defense and that of the other five defendants who asked the court to reject this petition.
Rondón’s lawyer, José Miguel Minier, said that the petition is untimely and that since the beginning of the process they have had the opportunity to interrogate Vasconcelos Cruz. He indicated that the procedural moment has not come for the Public Ministry to talk about new evidence.
“Why didn’t they [the prosecutors] investigate the truth, why didn’t they do the right investigation?” asked the lawyer. He recalled that the prosecutors were authorized to travel to Brazil to collect evidence and they did not do it, and “now they want to bring it here”.
Investigative journalist Alicia Ortega would travel to Brazil and spoke with several of the lead Brazilian prosecutors of the case, digging up new evidence and leads that then Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez chose not to investigate nor follow up with.
On Monday, 23 November in court, the judges would deny the petition to interrogate Vasconcelos Cruz. The judges also exempted Rondón from being interrogated by the prosecutors.
The civic watchdog group, Participacion Ciudadana urged the prosecution travel to Brazil to question the Brazilian officials linked to the Odebrecht case as the prosecutors of other countries have successfully done. “It is urgent to identify, gather the evidence and submit all the other responsible parties in a fraud that fills us with shame, especially when it is capable of being thrown in the face of all the decent Dominicans in this country, perhaps confident that impunity will continue to be the norm,” says a Participacion Ciudadana press release.
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24 November 2020