The legal representatives of the former director of the Office for the Reorderdering of Transportation (Opret), Diandino Peña, assured their client this Wednesday as often as necessary.
This was expressed after the interrogation of the former public prosecutor, minutes before 5:00 in the afternoon.
However, they did not indicate when he would be interviewed again or if Pepca would ask for his presence again.
Likewise, Peña declined to comment on the interpellation, as he did when he arrived at the Public Prosecution Service.
The former official arrived in Pepca before 4:00 p.m., the time scheduled for his interview with the prosecuting body, and when contacted by journalists stated he did not know why he was being called.
The accusation
Peña was called up to appear before Pepca after a complaint was filed against him in the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) mid-last month, where he was charged with stealing more than RD $ 9.2 billion during his tenure with the Opret. through multiple companies.
In the complaint, Peña, his wife and other family members and alleged front men are accused of committing crimes of rallying criminals, fraud against the state, reprieve, money laundering of assets derived from corruption and other crimes punishable by the Dominican Code of Criminal Law.
The complaint from the organization “Sed de Justicia” specifies that Peña, in his capacity as director of the Opret, used as a curtain 14 companies associated with his children, wife, son-in-law and close friends to build a significant number of construction contracts with the construction of the Santo Domingo metro lines, violating several laws, including Law 340-06 on Government Procurement and Procurement, and the Law on Public Administration.
According to the indictment, the corruption scheme included rank-to-rank contracts, simulation of purchasing processes through price comparison, and diverting materials from the Santo Domingo metro for Diandino Peña and his partners to build the luxurious Silver Sun shopping plaza.
Dismissal of Opret
Also in May 2017, journalist Alicia Ortega published a report on the El Informe program, revealing data about engineer Peña’s alleged unreported fortune.
During the interview that sparked a big debate in the country, Peña said: “I am not prepared for this interview. I can bring my finances and documents. I can’t remember 45 years of professional career ”,
And he added, “I can get my team to explain because he told my assistant that we would be talking about my professional career, not the privacy of my companies,” added the official.
Four days after this El Informe investigation was presented, the engineer Diandino Peña was fired from his position as director of the Opret on May 13 through Decree 168-17, issued by then President Danilo Medina, and was instead appointed Manuel Antonio Saleta García.
CHRONO
2000
In 2000, with the arrival of Hipólito Mejía’s government, Diandino Peña was among those accused of embezzling more than RD $ 1,438 million from the government program Plan Eventual Minimo de Empleo (PEME), but was banned from the case. or.
2007
In April 2007, when Leonel Fernández was again President of the Republic, the National District Prosecutor’s Office withdrew the complaint in the PEME case, which was accepted by the Second Collegiate Court of the National District Court of First Instance and declared the acquittal of Diandino. Peña and the other defendants.