Update: Neamţ County Council chairman, Ionel Arsene, under judicial control

Former PSD Deputy Ionel Arsene, currently Chairman of the Neamt County Council, has been placed under judicial control on Friday, following the decision of the Bacau Court.

The court judges have rejected the proposal for preventive arrest filed by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) – Bacau territorial service, and have decided upon setting the judicial control for 60 days.

Ionel Arsene was remanded on Thursday by the DNA prosecutors for influence peddling.

“The Prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate – Bacau Territorial Service have ordered the start of the criminal prosecution and the remand for 24-hour, starting on January 18, 2018, of the defendant Arsene Ionel, at the date of deeds Deputy with the Parliament and Chairman of the Neamt County branch of a political party, in terms of committing the offence of influence peddling,” the DNA release on Thursday read, according to realitatea.net.

According to the DNA, in 2013, Ionel Arsene, as Deputy and Chairman of the PSD Neamţ organization, received from a person (the witness in question) the amount of EUR100,000 in order to use his influence, as he claimed to have, on some people in the leadership of the National Integrity Agency (ANI), in order to find out the non-compliance to the legal provisions on the conflict of interest and the regime of incompatibilities in the case of a person who, at that time, had a leading position in the local administration.

The DNA claims that the money was handed by a witness, in a restaurant in Bucharest, and was to reach the respective persons through intermediaries.