According to the prosecuting body, the defendants formed a criminal structure dedicated to defrauding hundreds of people, both in the country and abroad, through the offer of alleged real estate projects.
SANTO DOMINGO. -The Public Prosecutor's Office asserted that the collective resignation of the defense attorneys for the accused Emmanuel Rivera Ledesma constitutes a lack of consideration for the victims of the Nido Case and a mockery in a criminal process in which the prosecution teams spent more than two months presenting evidence.
Rivera Ledesma acted as the ringleader of the network that defrauded hundreds of people using supposed real estate projects and which was dismantled through Operation Nido.
Court prosecutor Magalys Sánchez and prosecutor Laura Vargas Toledo deplored the conduct of the defendants through their legal counsel, who abandoned the process as it approached its end.
“We are outraged by the behavior shown by the defendants through their legal counsel, who today revealed themselves with a collective resignation,” said Sánchez.
He indicated that, while one of the defense attorneys claimed that she was abandoning the process to attend to her pregnancy, the other defense attorney, "belonging to the firm Fortiori Consultores Legales, also resigned, without presenting any excuse.".
He explained that this conduct causes the rupture of the principle of immediacy , after the Public Prosecutor's Office exhausted more than two months of presenting evidence, being already in the final phase of incorporating this evidence and close to the closing speech and the request for convictions within a reasonable time.
“The defendant and his defense have shown a lack of consideration and a mockery of the process, the victims, and society itself,” he pointed out.
She also lamented the human and economic impact this procedural conduct has on the victims. “With this decision, they have revictimized the victims, since they have had to incur expenses for flights and lawyers to be present during the proceedings,” she stated.
Following the resignation of the defense, judges Keyla Pérez Santana, Elías Santini and Arisleyda Méndez Batista, of the Fourth Collegiate Court of the National District, postponed the hearing yesterday, Tuesday, until December 9, at 9:00 a.m., the date on which the defendant Rivera Ledesma must have a new lawyer for the process against him or he will exhaust the procedure to be represented by the Public Defender's Office.
New date
Judges Keyla Pérez Santana , Elías Santini and Arisleyda Méndez Batista, of the Fourth Collegiate Court of the National District, postponed the hearing until December 9 , at 9:00 a.m., where Rivera Ledesma must have a new lawyer for the process against him or he will exhaust the procedure to be represented by the Public Defender's Office .
Regarding the case
In addition to Emmanuel Rivera Ledesma, those accused in the process are Escarlet Mercedes Cruz Figueroa, Emmanuel Eduardo Rivera Pichardo, Mirna Catalina Rivera Ledesma, Reilin Arismendy Rosario García and Juan Omar Rosario López, as well as the commercial entities Inmobiliaria Diseños Arquitectónicos (Indisarq) SRL and CRD Equipos Pesados SRL, who were sent to trial in May of this year.
Following the start of the trial, the prosecution concluded, on August 29, the reading of the indictment presented by the General Directorate of Prosecution of the Public Ministry together with the National District Prosecutor's Office, after multiple postponements, giving way to the reproduction of evidence.
The document details how, together with the aforementioned companies, they formed a criminal structure dedicated to defrauding hundreds of people, both in the country and abroad, through the offer of alleged real estate projects.
According to the indictment, the defendants lured the victims with promises of delivering apartments and commercial premises that never materialized, even though the victims handed over millions of dollars in money.
The funds were deposited into bank accounts linked to the companies in the network and some of the accused, and subsequently squandered, without the victims having received the acquired real estate units to date.
The Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that, as a result of this fraudulent scheme, the victims suffered serious economic and emotional damages, and that the approximate amount of the scam amounts to more than RD$235 million and more than US$10 million, sums that must be compensated in favor of the victims of this process.
The defendants face charges of fraud, document forgery, criminal association and money laundering, in violation of articles 265, 266, 405, 59, 60 and 147 of the Dominican Penal Code.
The investigation revealed that the criminal network used the companies Indisarq SRL and CRD Equipos Pesados SRL as instruments to carry out the frauds, offering non-existent properties in supposed real estate projects.
The network was dismantled after 25 raids carried out in the provinces of San Cristóbal, Dajabón, Espaillat, Sánchez Ramírez and the National District, where multiple properties and assets belonging to the accused were seized, who, according to the file, led a luxurious lifestyle financed with the funds obtained from the victims.
Among the evidence collected, the Public Prosecutor's Office indicated that Emmanuel Rivera Ledesma used the names of well-known public figures to gain the trust of the victims, without any real connection to said personalities.
Furthermore, after the investigations began, he tried to dissuade the victims from filing or maintaining complaints against him by signing new fraudulent contracts in order to avoid facing legal charges and obstructing the judicial process.
