Supreme Court of Justice judge, Francisco Ortega Polanco confirmed the start of the Odebrecht bribes corruption case for Friday, 6 July 2018. There had been doubts whether the judge would be who would hear the case after being objected by trial defendants Andrés Bautista, Conrado Pittaluga and Angel Rondon. The Supreme Court of Justice did not accept the objection and Judge Ortega chose to continue the case.
On 7 June 2018, Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez formally accused Bautista, Pittaluga and Rondón in addition to Víctor Díaz Rúa, Tommy Galán, Roberto Rodríguez and Jesús Vásquez. These need to answer to accusations of bribery, prevarication, illicit enrichment, forgery and asset laundering.
The investigations began after in December 2017 a New York City court said that Odebrecht admitted to paying US$788 million in bribes in 12 countries in Latin America and Africa. This included US$92 million paid for the company to secure contract work from the Dominican government from 2001 to 2014.
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Diario Libre
3 July 2018
