This is apartment 11-E of the Pedro Henríquez Ureña Condominium, located at Avenida Pedro Henríquez Ureña No. 131, La Esperilla, National District, seized in the José David Figueroa Agosto Case.
Taken from Diario Libre
SANTO DOMINGO.- Among the accusations presented by the Public Prosecutor's Office against those involved in the alleged corruption network called Medusa, is the misappropriation and irregular allocation of assets seized and under the custody of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The document states that the Custody and Seized Assets Unit was under the absolute control of former Attorney General Jean Alain Rodríguez Sánchez, who allegedly elevated it to a directorate and instructed all prosecutors and assistant attorneys general to provide him with "a physical and electronic list of all movable and immovable assets and property that have been seized and/or confiscated and/or placed under his custody and/or administration.".
They also indicate that, on the instructions of Rodríguez Sánchez, the accused Alejandro Martín Rosa Llanes was appointed as director of that unit, whom the investigators define as a primary school classmate at the Loyola School of Santo Domingo of the former prosecutor and of Mr. Rafael Canó Sacco, “a person of mutual trust, a guarantee of the unrestricted compliance with superior orders.”.
Among the irregularities that the Specialized Prosecutor's Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption (PEPCA) points out were committed in the aforementioned unit, the most notable is what happened with an apartment that they allegedly sold at auction and for which, supposedly, a single payment of 1.5 million pesos was made, despite the fact that the offer was 10.5 million and that the appraised value was 21 million pesos.
This is apartment 11-E of the Pedro Henríquez Ureña Condominium, located at Avenida Pedro Henríquez Ureña No. 131, La Esperilla, National District, seized in the José David Figueroa Agosto Case.
The file indicates that the apartment was ceded for occupancy to the company Asteria Mercantil SRL, for housing purposes, and that the aforementioned company belongs to the citizen José Augusto Montás Cabrera, “brother of Mrs. Shaula Thais Montás Cabrera, a trusted person of the accused Jean Alain Rodríguez Sánchez, who appointed her to the position of Coordinator, in the so-called Institutional Coordination Directorate of the Attorney General's Office, and had accompanied him in the CEI-RD with the position of Sub Manager, in the Call Center and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Management”
The indictment describes that the apartment had a custody agreement valid for five years, dated February 1, 2017, which was allegedly signed by the accused Rosa Llanes, director of the Seized Assets Unit, José Augusto Montás Cabrera, as manager of Asteria Mercantil (occupant for housing) and the accused Jonnathan Rodríguez Imbert, Administrative and Financial Director of the Attorney General's Office.
For the custody, a monthly payment of 30,000 pesos was agreed upon as compensation for the use of the property, and another 30,000 pesos as payment for maintenance.
“However, as of the first (01) day of June of the year two thousand twenty-two (2022), for this last concept alone, it presents a general debt of Five Million Eight Hundred Eighty-Seven Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Four Dominican Pesos with Seventy-Eight Cents (RD$5,887,654.78),” says the PEPCA.
The Public Prosecutor's Office adds that, despite the debt and the fact that the contract clause establishes that the failure to pay the monthly installments is considered a violation of the custody agreement of the property, and that the Attorney General's Office can terminate it without any liability towards the occupant, "the accused Alejandro Martín Rosa Llanes and Jonnathan Rodríguez Imbert, never exercised the corresponding actions in the interest of the institution they represented, nor did they demand compliance with such payment obligations from the debtor.".
He points out that both “prevaricated in his favor, because there was a firm decision to divert the property for the benefit of these people, third parties linked to the accused Jean Alain Rodríguez Sánchez.”.
It then details the act of appropriation of the property. “The aforementioned apartment was appropriated through the alleged “auction” identified with the number PSBI-01-2019, under the modality of a sealed bid auction.”.
It indicates that for such purposes, citizen José Augusto Montás Cabrera registered as an offeror, “making a single payment for the amount of One Million Five Hundred Seventy-Five Thousand Dominican Pesos (RD$1,575,000.00), equivalent to 15% of the offered price, which amounted to Ten Million Five Hundred Thousand Dominican Pesos (RD$10,500,000.00), even though the documentation states that the apartment had an appraised value of Twenty-One Million Eighty-Two Thousand Dominican Pesos (RD$21,082,000.00), that is, more than double the sale price.”.
In the indictment, investigators state that the former Attorney General, as president of the Public Prosecutor's Office Council, secured the approval of two regulations for the Custody, Administration, and Disposal of Seized and Confiscated Movable and Immovable Property. The latter of these resolutions allegedly included the sealed-bid auction method, "as a preparatory step to be applied to auction PSBI-01-2019.".
They also mention that with the modifications to the regulations, the prohibitions on being bidders were made more flexible, making them contingent on the official or public employee having had direct participation in the case or process of seizure of the property in question.
It would also have allowed the elimination of the sales commission for movable and immovable property seized from the Attorney General's Office, giving the Attorney General the authority on the matter in particular, "as seen in Articles 5, 12, 36 and 39, of the Regulation dated June 18, 2019.".
He insists that the sealed-bid auction method was a procedure "to dissipate the confiscated assets, distributing them at their discretion based on influence peddling and other tricks, resulting in a fiasco for the coffers of the Dominican State, which should have been the final beneficiary of the confiscation and sale of the assets.".
“The accused himself, Jean Alain Rodríguez Sánchez, attempted to divert four (04) properties through the aforementioned auction, for which he used Mr. Sergio Augusto Sánchez Piñero, a former co-worker at the company Domicem, SA, a trusted person, as a front man.”.
It details that Sánchez Piñero was summoned to the office of the former attorney general, “where they met and the former asked the latter to buy a property located in Palenque, San Cristóbal, which was in public auction, to put it in his name and that it would be sold later, an operation for which he would pay Mr. Sánchez Piñeiro One Million Dominican Pesos (RD$1,000,000.00), a proposal to which the latter agreed, receiving the amounts of the first bid from the hands of the former attorney general's assistant, Mrs. Vilmi Durán.”.
PEPCA says that the abbreviations of the name Sánchez Piñero are repeated in four different auction processes.
