Dominican journalist wins a court round in US$195M graft case

Santo Domingo.- Maybeth Rodríguez, the sister of Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez, on Thur. said she has dropped the charges of slander against the journalist Marino Zapete.

The confrontation between the communicator and Rodríguez arose after Zapete’s complaint about the alleged involvement in the company Grupo Asimra, SRL, which would have received more than RD$1.0 billion pesos from the Ministry of Public Works as a contractor that supplied asphalt.

In a letter addressed to the presiding judge of the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the National District Court of First Instance, Rodríguez states that no sentence, “no matter how fair, could change the imaginary that has been formed” around her case.

She said that the decision was taken against the recommendations of the jurists who accompany her, aware of the consequences, in search of peace and with faith in God.

In addition, it attaches a document in which the Grupo Asimra company certifies that Rodríguez is not and has not been a shareholder of that company.

The case is part of an alleged major graft case involving the purchase of RD$11.7 billion (US$195 million) in asphalt by the Public Works Ministry.