Dominican Republic ‘Octopus’ case defendants stay in jail

The Santo Domingo.- The evident leader of the alleged corruption structure said to have defrauded the State out of more than RD$5.0 billion (US$87.7 million), Juan Alexis Medina Sánchez, said Monday, before his request for freedom was rejected: “I am going to be sentenced Judge, I am going to be condemned as a prize (…), and everyone knows why.”

The brother of former President Danilo Medina, imprisoned 15 months ago, in front of the judge of the Seventh Investigating Court of the National District, Deiby Timoteo Peguero, alluded to the fact that he is in a total state of defenselessness, including food, and that with this what is sought is to reward “you know who.”

“Everyone in this country knows why I am a prisoner, and why this persecution they have had against us. I’ve even had brothers who don’t even have anything to do with this case, to put them on the front page,” said the top defendant in the “Octopus” case.

In his own defense, Medina Sánchez stood up for Fernando Rosa, Wacal Vernavel Méndez Pineda and José Dolores Santana, by requesting a lighter pretrial detention for not representing a flight risk.

Unswayed, the judge kept the four defendants in prison.