“Criminal procedural regulations establish that when an effective collaborator collaborates in a case, the consequence is the application of a criterion of opportunity.” The assertion is made by the professor of Criminal Procedure Law at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), John Garrido, who assured this Tuesday that the Public ministry did not comply with the provisions of the law against one of the main defendants in the Antipulpo case, Francisco Pagán.
pagan, exdirector of the State Works Supervisory Engineers Office (Oisoe), was sentenced to five years in prison, three of which were suspended for his involvement in the case of alleged administrative corruption.
In this regard, Garrido, who was also an assistant prosecutor in the National District, explained that said criterion of opportunity means in criminal matters that “The charges, the facts and the imputations are withdrawn”based on article 272 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
«In the case of Mr. Pagán, the Public Ministry either deceived him or he allowed himself to be deceived because they applied an abbreviated penalty. And the consequences of his collaboration, according to article 727, is that the charges had to be withdrawn »said the lawyer, who was interviewed on the Sol de la Tarde program, which is broadcast on Zol 106.5 FM.
In this sense, Garrido understands that what happened with the former official represents a serious and dangerous bad precedent.
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In addition, he considered that the Dominican administration of justice “is a disaster”, because, according to his criteria, it does not adhere to what the laws establish.
«In an abbreviated prison it is with the Public Ministry, not with the judge. And then the Public Ministry and the accused must appear before the judge to vent and no evidence was released, it was simply approved, “Garrido criticized.
It is recalled that Pagán reached an agreement with the accusing body and pleaded guilty.
“These agreements consist of an opportunity criterion, a conditional suspension of the procedure, and two abbreviated criminal procedures,” Wilson Camacho, deputy prosecutor in the case, had said.
Yeni Berenice Reynoso, General Director of Prosecution of the Public Ministry, revealed that the former official himself acknowledged his state of bankruptcy in the interrogations in which he testified in the presence of his lawyer, Carlos Salcedo. He had multiple lawsuits for writing bad checks, two mortgages had been foreclosed on his house and a lemon farm located in Monte Plata.
He insisted that before arriving at the Oisoe, the economic situation of Pagán Rodríguez “was very precarious” and that the Public Ministry accumulates so much information about his illegal crimes that it could write a biography about the defendant who today exhibits an apartment of 450,000 dollars in the Alco Paradisso tower directly and another through the contractor Máximo Suárez Baba.
Pagán Rodríguez, who received the defendant Juan Alexis Medina Sánchez up to four times a week at the Oisoe, also ended his administration with a 3,000-tare farm in the southern region of the country, as well as luxury vehicles.
