Defendants in Odebrecht case confident Court will acquit them

Santo Domingo, DR
Businessman Ángel Rondón and engineer Víctor Díaz Rúa are confident that the Third Chamber of the Court of Appeal of the National District will revoke the sentence of 8 and 5 years in prison, respectively, imposed on them by the First Collegiate Court of the National District, for the bribes that the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht admitted paying in the country, to obtain works.

The reading of the sentence, scheduled for yesterday, was postponed by the judges for 19 May at 11:00 am.

Immediately, Rondón stated that it would be difficult for the Court to issue a sentence that would not absolve him “for lack of having not shown who I bribed.” He declared that “the bribed were all acquitted for not having received bribes.” He specified that on pages 68 and 69 of the request for coercive measures, the Public Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that in an interrogation of an executive vice-president of the EGEHID, whose name was omitted to protect him, he informed that an Odebrecht official offered him US$81,000 and that the Public Prosecutor’s Office left both out.

While Diaz Rua said that his conviction for illicit enrichment was a mistake because he has demonstrated that he did not incur this illegality through his affidavits of assets he deposited before the First Collegiate Court, he trusts that the Court will correct it.