Assets for about US$500,000 seized

Although she was exonerated from prison due to age, Mrs. Rosa Antonia Disla had properties valued at around USD 500,000 confiscated, and she will have to pay the Dominican State compensation of RD$5 million.

The judges of the Third Collegiate Court of the National District ordered this after finding her guilty of money laundering in the corruption network Coral, of which her son, Colonel Rafael Núñez de Haza, “was the operational arm,” according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

This is the first conviction obtained by the MP in the Coral case, which involved 48 defendants in a network of administrative corruption that, from the Presidential Security (Cusep), Tourist Security (Cestur), and Conani bodies, would have moved some RD$4.5 billion in properties and financial products.

Separate Trial

On January 27, 2023, accepting a request from the MP, the judge of the sixth investigating court, Yanibet Rivas, ordered the separation of Disla’s process from the other defendants for alleged reasons related to the defendant’s health.

In January 2024, at the request of the MP, Judge Rivas declared the colonel’s mother “in absentia” and ordered her arrest after her lawyers abandoned the case.

Judge recused

On March 13, 2024, Disla’s lawyers, Félix Porte and Anny Elizabeth Guzmán, recused Judge Rivas based on Article 78, numeral 6 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP), alleging that she had already heard about the Coral case when she issued the opening of the trial.

The MP described the defendant’s defense’s action against the judge as “reckless litigation” to evade public action.

The sentence

Yesterday, the third collegiate court, comprised of magistrates Arlin Ventura, Milagros Ramírez, and Leticia Noboa, sentenced Rosa Antonia Disla, accused of “Testaferro,” to five years of suspended imprisonment. It also ordered the confiscation of several assets that she possessed as a result of the crimes in which she participated and the payment of compensation to the State.

Other defendants

They include Colonel Juan Carlos Torres Robiou, former head of Cestur, General Julio Camilo Santos Viola, Army General Boanerges Reyes Batista, Captain Franklin Antonio Mata Flores, and Colonels Carlos A. Lantigua and Miguel Ventura Pichardo.