American Expatriate Costa Rica

PAC could be facing a sentence for fraud that amounts to ¢900 million

The Citizen Action Party (PAC) was sentenced for the crime of fraud against the State and it could amount to ¢900 million if the sentence for the damage caused is ¢516 million and the respective interests are added.

This was stated on Monday by the criminal prosecutor, Randall Albán Aguirre, before the legislators that make up the special commission of the Legislative Assembly that investigates the financing of three campaigns of the political group.

Albán said that the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) will insist, in a new judicial process, so that the amount of the economic sanction is ¢516 million, as he appealed in December 2017 before the Court of Appeal of the First Judicial Circuit from San josé.

The Attorney General’s Office filed the appeal in December 2016, after the San José Criminal Court imposed a conviction of ¢353 million on the political group.

Albán said that the institution will insist that the sentence includes 84 contracts for special services – the mechanism used by the PAC to deceive the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) – in the first conviction, since that time they only prosecuted 179 of a total of 263.

The special services contracts were charged to the TSE, although the leaders who signed them did a free job and the charges were made after the 2010 elections.

The Criminal Prosecutor reiterated that the PAC “improperly appropriated” ¢516 million and that if the interests are added, which were not contested, from the moment of the crime until the effective payment, could increase to ¢900 million.

He said that most of those resources issued in bonds were left to banks that financed the 2010 campaign to the PAC and the media. He added that so far not a single colon has been paid out of the amount of the sentence and that the State could now claim ¢353 million of the initial conviction.

crhoy.com