A lawyer has offered to serve pro bono the parents of Paula Santana Escalante, the 23-year old who during the day studied to be a flight attendant and worked the night shift at (Oscor Caribe) Integer Holdings Corporation, a major free zone manufacturing center of sophisticated medical devices. Criminal law professor Pedro Jose Duarte Canaan was interviewed by investigative journalist Jose Peguero for his Las Exclusivas Youtube Channel and says the case is not over despite the temporary filing of the case by the judge.
Lawyer Duarte Canaan criticizes the Santo Domingo province prosecution for the poor showing and weak investigations and its handling of the case. The case was temporarily filed after the release of two young men who had been accused for lack of evidence.
Social media is circulating a plight that the case not be forgotten since the killer of the young girl is free and was never investigated.
The body of Paula Santana was found showing signs of torture and sexual abuse just 30 meters from the manufacturing plant. As reported, at 1:28am she left her working station to go to the bathroom and never returned.
Duarte Canaan calls for investigating her superiors. The young woman had placed a sexual harassment complaint to the human resources against one individual. Duarte Canaan says this individual was never questioned.
The lawyer suspects it was a higher-up who, when the young woman rejected his sexual advances, carried out the criminal act. In his speculation, the lawyer goes even further to state the individual is of state of mind that he left the body near the factory to send a sign to other women that this would happen to those who rejected him.
The lawyer criticizes that the Police cybernetic investigation division (Dicat) never studied the phone calls made to and from the woman’s Apple Iphone 11. He also is not convinced that the medical devices company did not have surveillance cameras. The individual mentioned in the harassment complaint placed by the victim was never investigated, according to the lawyer.
Duarte Canaan says the family legally has the right to act, despite the tempory filing of the case. He says the family can seek a monetary compensation from the company either in resuming the penal case or in a civil case. “What is important is the case is not closed,” says the lawyer. He urges efforts be carried out with the support of influencers to start a media crusade so that the public prosecutors of the Santo Domingo province reopen the case and put together the evidence to reintroduce the process.
He stresses that before her death, the victim had presented a claim to the human resources division of the factory for sexual harassment and insists that person was not interrogated during the preliminary investigations.
Ministry of Labor inspectors visited the Oscor Caribe (Interger Holdings Corporation) free zone at the Las Americas Free Zone on Las Americas Expressway and interviewed the fellow workers of the deceased and the administrative staff. The Ministry of Labor ordered that the plant where the woman worked be shut down to guarantee the security of the other workers.
The prosecutors working in the case for Santo Domingo East arrested two fellow workers, one of which had found the corpse on the outside of the company. These were 38-year old Joaquín Alexander Hidalgo Marte (Alex), and 23-year old Alex Elvin Cruz Díaz (Chuki). The San Pedro de Macoris judge Karen Casado Minyety, despite there not being evidence against them, ordered these to three months of preventive custody in the San Pedro de Macoris jail. The parents of the two men said this was abusive and that the decision sought to deter the investigation away from the real victimizer and that employees of the free zone were protecting a person with an important position in the factory.
Duarte Canaan concurs the two men were accused to distract the public from the case and give time for the evidence to be erased.
At the completion of the preventive custody term, the two were released for lack of the evidence that Duarte Canaan says was already not there when the two were arrested. The investigation into the real killer of Paula Santana Escalante seems to have been abandoned and lawyer Duarte Canaan is on a media tour to rev up interest to keep the case alive.
Duarte Canaan says the family can sue the factory and insists that there have been too many weaknesses in the prosecution and urges the restart of the investigation to find the culprit who so far has gotten away with murder of Paula Santana on 21 February 2024. Her corpse was found on 23 February. He urges public support for the woman who he says was a “nobody” and for that reason did not have the pull to get the judiciary to act in this white-collar crime case.
Read more in Spanish:
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Las Exclusivas de Jose Peguero
El Nuevo Diario
19 September 2024