“The order. The former head of Oisoe said that following Danilo Medina’s instructions, the search for money was reinforced and in eight weeks 126 million were delivered to aspiring legislators.”
Santo Domingo, RD: Francisco Pagán, former director of the Office of State Works Supervising Engineers, admitted during interrogations that in eight weeks, they collected and distributed 126 million pesos to the 22 candidates for deputies from the province of Santiago and the candidate for senator of the Dominican Liberation Party.
Pagán’s revelation is contained in an interrogation by the assistant prosecutors Yeni Berenice Reynoso, director of Persecution, and Wilson Camacho, director of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Prosecution of Administrative Corruption.
According to this interpellation, to which Listín Diario had access, in a meeting that former President Danilo Medina instructed in his office, “with about 12 weeks left” for the 2020 elections, in which between 10 and 12 people participated, including the former president, José Ramón Peralta and the former administrator of EdeNorte, Julio César Correa, were instructed to collect money for the campaign of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
The interrogation took place on January 13, 2023. Pagán was accompanied by Luz Díaz Rodríguez, Cristian Cabrera Heredia, and Sandra Pamela Tavárez García as his technical defenses.
“President Danilo Medina took the floor and told us that it was necessary to support the campaign of the senators and deputies of the PLD and the presidential elections, and that for that he had called us. José Ramón Peralta took the floor and read a list that they had prepared to distribute the provinces among those present”, Pagán said during the interrogation.
“They read the list only with the names and the provinces. When we left the meeting, we agreed to coordinate the collection among the contractors,” he said.
He explained that he and Julio César Correa were informed that the campaign of the deputies and senators of Santiago was their turn and that when they left the meeting, they agreed to coordinate the collection among the contractors.
“The amounts to contribute were indicated by the legislators themselves and Julio César and I managed 50% each,” explained Pagán.
“In these efforts, I asked the contractors for approximately sixty-three million, corresponding to 50% of what was required by the candidates. The other 50% was collected by Julio César Correa, for a total of 126 million in 8 weeks, right now I cannot specify the exact amounts for contractors but I promise that I will deliver that information later,” he said.
He said that he began to request the different contractors, and every week he was paying the “commitment personally to each one of the (candidates for) deputies” in Santiago.
“In that house, the candidates for legislators were waiting for us, and they were delivered. The contributions were made in cash, during the first 7 or 8 weeks each candidate for deputy from Santiago received RD$300,000 and in the last two weeks before the elections the sum of RD$700,000 was given to each one,” he explained.
money deliveries
In those previous weeks, he expressed that the senator candidate was given “RD$800,000 and the last two weeks more or less RD$2,000,000 pesos per week.”
Pagán said that he required the contractors an approximately 73 million, corresponding to 50% of what was needed for the candidates. Julio César Correa collected the other part for “a total of 126 million in 8 weeks.”
Pagán is part of the file requesting a measure of coercion of the witnesses that he will use in the Public Ministry to prove the accusations against the former Minister of Finance, Donald Guerrero; former administrative minister of the presidency, José Ramón Peralta; former Minister of Public Works Gonzalo Castillo, and 3l former Comptroller General of the Republic, Daniel Omar Caamaño.
He also against the former director of the State Sugar Council (CEA), Luis Miguel Piccirilo; former director of the National Cadastre, Claudio Silver Peña; the economist Ángel Lockward and the former directors of Casinos and Gambling, Oscar Chalas Guerrero and Julián Omar Fernández.
Also arrested are Roberto Santiago Moquete, Agustín Mejía Ávila, Emir Fernández de Paola, Marcial Reyes, Alejandro Constanzo, Yahaira Brito Encarnación, Ana Linda Fernández, Ángel Lockward, Aldo Antonio Gerbasi, Ramón David Hernández, Víctor Matías Encarnación, and Rafael Parmenio Rodríguez Encarnación.
The group is accused of diverting more than 19 billion pesos under the criminal association, embezzlement, a coalition of officials, falsifying public and private documents, bribery, and illicit campaign financing on an unprecedented scale.