Former Lottery Administrator Luis Maisichell Dicent was discharged of charges of fraud in the Operation 13 Case heard in the judiciary. Maisichell Dicent was appointed in the Abinader administration.
Operation 13 is the case that exploded when a video of the calling of the lottery on 1 May 2021 revealed a scam. Accusations charged that the fraud caused losses of RD$500 million.
Wilson Camacho, of the Anti-Corruption Agency of the Attorney General Office (PEPCA), said the PEPCA would appeal. He said it is impossible that the fraudulent lottery call could have happened without the participation of Maisichell Dicent.
The Second Collegiate Court of the National District dismissed the former administrator of the National Lottery, Luis Maisichell Dicent, from the Operation 13 case yet sentenced the other defendants to seven, six and five years in prison.
The court presided by Claribel Nivar and integrated by Yissel Soto and Katherine Rubio ruled that no evidence was presented against the former administrator and the cameraman Edison Manuel Perdomo Peralta.
In this sense, the judges ordered the end to preventive custody against Maisichell Dicent and Perdomo Peralta.
“The court rejects the civil complaints constituted because of the lack of proof of the criminal and civil fault of these defendants, exempting them from the payment of the civil dues,” decided the judges.
In its sentence, the court also condemned William Lizandro Rosario Ortiz, to seven years in prison and Eladio Batista Valerio, to six years in prison, for having committed the acts they are accused of. The men were ordered to serve the sentence in the prison of Najayo-Hombres.
Felipe Santiago Toribio was found guilty, sentenced to five years in prison, two of them suspended; Carlos Berigüete, Jonathan Brea, Valentina Rosario Cruz, were sentenced to five years in prison, also two of them suspended.
Miguel Mejia Rodriguez and Rafael Mesa, were also found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. The sentences of these persons was fully suspended.
The ruling stated that William Rosario Ortiz was sentenced to seven years in prison for money laundering and bribery. The court found he planned, together with fugitive Leonidas Medina Arvelo (Nazaret), the lottery fraud.
According to the ruling, Rosario Ortiz used a “friendship” he said he had with the former Lottery administrator to promise the other seven convicted men that they were going to be promoted in the Lottery and he would be paid for executing the fraud.
“Everyone here knew each other, including Mr. Dicent,” the court said, noting that the former Lottery administrator knew Rosario Ortiz because he came to serve as spokesman for Fenabanca, which was presided over by the now-convicted man.
“Despite the fact of the existence of that link of friendship, the court has not been able to extract beyond that link of that relationship if there was a slip, if there was a meeting of this citizen (Maisichell Dicent) with the today indicated William, with some of the defendants. We do not have a call, we do not have a mapping, we do not have an approach, we do not have anything. We have only brought to the court the incriminating statements of one defendant (Valentina Rosario Cruz) who affirmed to have met with the citizen and who also, since she sat here, told the court “I am not going to answer questions,” said Claribel Nivar Arias, president of the Second Collegiate Court.
Read more in Spanish:
Somos Pueblo
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
DR1 News
7 March 2023