The Second Criminal Chamber of the Court of Appeal of the National District rejected this Tuesday a request for release filed by the former attorney general, Jean Alain Rodriguez Sánchez, the main defendant in the file for administrative corruption in the Operation Medusa case.
The information was provided by the Attorney General’s Office, in a press release.
“Precisely the reason that this Second Chamber of the Court of Appeal has taken to maintain the measure of coercion imposed against the accused Jean Alain Rodriguezis the obstruction of justice”, said the deputy attorney Wilson Camachohead of the Specialized Prosecution Office for Administrative Corruption (Pepca).
He stressed that the court, made up of judges Isis Muñiz Almonte, Luis Omar Jiménez Rosa and Rosalba Gariz, made the decision considering that the Public Ministry “deposited today, in court, evidence of the actions of members of that defense to intimidate and intimidate witnesses.”
He indicated that “this is a sign of the desperation that this defense has in the face of the imminent accusation that will come in the coming days.”
Camacho emphasized that, as part of the investigations of Operation Medusa, the Public Ministry “has identified a structure of bribery and extortion without precedent in the history of the Dominican Republic.”
He described the structure of administrative corruption set up by the defendants in Operation Medusa as “something plain and simple scandalous, that can be seen in the accusation and what this defense does (the intimidation of witnesses) is a sign of fear in the face of the forcefulness of the evidence we have in this process”.
Camacho was accompanied by prosecutors Emmanuel Ramírez and Miguel Collado.
According to the file of jellyfish casethe former attorney Rodríguez Sánchez and the accused were part of a criminal network of corruption that operated from the Attorney General’s Office in the period 2016-2020 and that, according to preliminary estimates, defrauded the Dominican State with more than 6 billion pesos.
Rodríguez Sánchez, Forteza Ibarra and the former administrative director, Jonathan Joel Rodríguez Imbert, are serving preventive detention at the Najayo Hombres Correction and Rehabilitation Center.
Engineer Jenny Marte Peña, former head of Projects, is under house arrest, as are former administrative deputy directors Alfredo Alexander Solano Augusto and Altagracia Guillén Calzado, as well as Rafael Antonio Mercedes Marte, former director of Accounting.
The process is also being carried out against former adviser Miguel José Moya, who was imposed an economic guarantee of one million pesos in the form of a contract with an insurance company, an exit impediment and periodic presentation.
Likewise, it involves Rafael Stefano Canó Sacco, the former chief of staff of former attorney Rodríguez Sánchez, who was arrested in Spain last year and his delivery to the Dominican Republic was requested.
The administrative corruption prosecution body imputes the violation of articles 123, 124, 166, 167, 265, 266 and 405 of the Penal Code, which describe and sanction the coalition of officials, prevarication, association of criminals and fraud against the State , among other rules.
