Ex-judge in the football transfers case sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison. Which are the other sentences?

Bucharest Court of Appeal on Thursday sentenced former judge Geanina Terceanu to five years and six months in prison for bribe taking in the high-sounding Transfers case. The decision is not final yet.

Ioan Victor Becali, former footabll manager, was senteced to 7 years and 4 months in jail, his brother, Victor Becali to 5 years and 8 months in jail and ex-football club owner Cristian Borcea was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in jail for bribery in the same case.

The High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled on December 2015 that Geanina Terceanu, under preventive arrest at that time, should be placed under house arrest.

Geanina Terceanu and brothers Ioan and Victor Becali (football managers) were arrested on November 20. Anti-corruption prosecutors accuse the former judge that she took EUR 220,000 as bribe to acquit Becali brothers and another six football people in the Transfers file.

Prosecutors say that Geanina Terceanu, judge with the Bucharest Tribunal at that time, received this file on football players’ transfers, where Ioan Becali, Victor Becali, Cristian Borcea and another five had been indicted for fraud and tax evasion while ordering illegal transactions related to the footballers’ transfers abroad.

In April 2012, Terceanu decided to acquit all eight defendants in this case, which caused a prejudice mounting to almost USD 1.5 M to the state budget and to almost USD 10 M to the prejudice of four football clubs.

Following investigations, the DNA prosecutors established that, in order to acquit the defendants, Geanina Terceanu received a total sum of EUR 220,000, in several tranches, from Ioan and Victor Becali, starting April 2009 until May 2012.

The defendants used to give the bribe to the judge personally or through agents, in various locations in Bucharest and Ilfov and Ialomita counties. During 2009, Terceanu used part of the money to buy a house, investigators say.

However, the acquittal ruling pronounced by Geanina Terceanu was annulled by the Bucharest Court of Appeal, with the court ordering new sentences for the defendants: from three to eight years in prison.

Cristian Borcea and Ioan Becali – six years and eight months in prison each. George Copos-three years and eight months in prison, Mihai Stoica- three years and six months, Gheorghe Netoiu and Jean Padureanu- three years and four months each and Gheorghe Popescu-three years and one month.

Most of them are currently released.