Defendants in corruption cases will spend Christmas at home

Santo Domingo.- Individuals facing corruption charges in several high-profile cases will be able to spend the Christmas holidays at home with their families or have the freedom to move throughout the country. These decisions come as a result of changes in the preventive detention measures initially imposed by the Dominican justice system.

Notably, in the case known as “Anti-Octopus,” the main defendant, Juan Alexis Medina Sánchez, who is the brother of former President Danilo Medina, has had his house arrest lifted, along with the removal of his electronic monitoring device. However, he remains prohibited from leaving the country, and a substantial economic guarantee of 60 million pesos has been retained. Medina Sánchez is accused by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (Pepca) of orchestrating a corporate network through influence peddling during his brother’s presidential terms. This network allegedly engaged in fraudulent activities in collusion with government officials.

In the same Anti-Octopus case, former officials Carmen Magalys Medina Sánchez and Fernando Rosa Rosa, accused of participating in an alleged administrative corruption network that defrauded the state of over 5,000 million pesos, had their prison house arrest revoked by judges Luis Omar Jiménez, Teófilo Andújar, and Delio Germán of the Second Chamber of the Court of Appeal of the National District in November.

Francisco Pagán Rodríguez, the former director of the Office of State Works Supervising Engineers (Oisoe), reached a plea agreement with the Public Ministry in January of the current year after undergoing an abbreviated criminal trial during the preliminary stage of the case. While Pagán was sentenced to five years in prison, with three years suspended, for his involvement in the corruption case, due to the extended court process, he is currently serving his sentence at home.

Similarly, Juan Esteban Suriel Suazo and Lewin Ariel Castillo negotiated a three-year suspended prison sentence, which is nearly the duration of the case’s proceedings. They, too, will spend the Christmas season outside of prison.

These decisions reflect changes in the legal status of those involved in these corruption cases, allowing them to temporarily reunite with their families or move freely within the country during the holiday season.