Prosecution appeals acquittal in Water Agency ‘RD$1.0B’ graft

Santo Domingo.- The Anticorruption Prosecutor (Pepca) on Tue. appealed the ruling by the National District 1st Panel Court which acquitted former National Water Institute (Inapa) director Alberto Holguín and contractor Sobeida Perdomo, charged with embezzlement, bribery and fraud.

The Pepca argues that the Court ruling is “riddled with legal contradictions.”

“The court incurs contradictions and manifest illogicality in the statement of reasons for stating that for the exercise of probative assessment to the accreditation of the facts contained in the accusation with respect to each defendant will only be limited to the text indicated by the judge of guarantee that in the order opening the trial, it modified the legal classification, excluding Purchase and Contracting Law 340 -06,” the appeal says.

It said that it’s evident that the judges, at the moment of making the ruling, “failed to value the evidence described in the accusation, concerning the denaturalization of the facts on the part of the accused.”

In the appeal filed Oct. 25, the prosecution asks to revoke the lower court ruling and find the defendants guilty of fraud, which some media place as much as RD$1.0 billion.