Judges motivate Oprescu’s arrest: Bucharest Mayor received EUR 25,000 to keep a corrupt clerk into office

Bucharest Mayor Sorin Oprescu received EUR 25,000 on Saturday night to keep a civil servant into office and not as a loan, as he “totally inconclusively” claimed in front of the judge, reads the court’s arrest motivation.

Bucharest Court that on Sunday decided to place Oprescu under preventive arrest argues that the arrest can be disposed during prosecution if the evidence proves the defendant committed a corruption crime.

The court shows the evidence points that during 2013-2015 a well organized group set up a system through which the businessmen who wanted contracts with the municipality had to give part of the gross revenue earned from the contract as a bribe to the decision making factors supervised by Mayor Sorin Oprescu.

The criminal activity initiated near the indicter, who used to hold positions at Brancovenesti Palaces Cultural Center in Mogosoaia and at the Cemeteries Administration, would have developed on two levels.

On the first level there was the activity of the indicter, charged with granting public contracts to some private contractors, claiming and taking important sums of money as brib, while this activity enabled the bribe taking crime committed by Mayor Oprescu, reads the motivation.

According to the judge, there is a reasonable suspicion that, based on a previous agreement with other two persons, Oprescu received EUR 25,000 from one of these persons, out of a total of EUR 60,000 claimed from a private company that was conducting construction works at Mogosoaia Palace.

Sorin Oprescu would have thus validated the criminal deed of the persons who gave him money and would have maintained a corrupt civil servant in a public position.