The current senator for the Espaillat province, Carlos Manuel Gómez Ureña, has brought to justice the former Minister of Public Works, Manuel de Jesús (Freddy) Pérez, for an alleged scam for the distribution of dividends left by the sale of the building “Torre Empresarial Integral ”, where the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Mipymes (MICM) currently operates.
The complaint was filed on August 23, 2018, for the alleged distraction of more than 130 million pesos from the sale of the building and is deposited with the National District Prosecutor’s Office by the businessman and now senator, Pérez’s partner in the construction company , through their legal representatives Julio Santamaría, Daniel Izquierdo and Huáscar Tejeda.
The lease with the option to purchase this building is under scrutiny, since Temístocles Montás signed the contract with the Reserve Bank for US $ 31,000,000.00, or RD $ 1,464,750,000.00, and without bidding.
Freddy Pérez was also accused of abuse of trust and association of criminals, together with the engineers Publio José Silfa Valencia and Ramón Andújar Ramírez, in alleged violation of articles 265, 266 and 408 of the Penal Code and article three of the Law 155-17 of the Law against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing.
The plaintiff’s lawyers affirmed that the net profit, corresponding to his client Carlos Gómez Ureña, amounts to more than RD $ 130 million, a sum that, according to them, was distracted by the defendants Pérez, Silfa Valencia and Andújar Ramírez.
On September 7, 2018, they filed a complaint with the Office of the Special Prosecutor for the Persecution of Administrative Corruption (PEPCA) for the non-observance of the provisions of Law 340-06 on State Procurement and Contracting.
And more recently, on January 5, 2021, Gómez Ureña’s lawyers filed a complaint of tax fraud before the General Directorate of Internal Taxes.
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Chronology of the litis
Pérez y Gómez’s partnership began in 2004, with the sale of the La Provence apartment building, in La Esperilla, National District. Later they are associated to build the “Integral Business Tower”, for offices and which would end up being the current headquarters of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
Pérez, Publio José Silfa Valencia and Ramón Antonio Andújar Ramírez signed a partnership agreement with Carlos Manuel Gómez Ureña, current senator for the Espaillat province, for the real estate operation.
The land where the building was built had a mortgage with the defunct Banco Mercantil and Gómez gave Freddy Pérez, in 2004, the sum of US $ 1,063,000.00 to cancel the mortgage and also a penthouse of the La Provence building with a value of US $ 400,000.00 , whose value was applied to the investment for the construction of the MICM building, which is located in the Bella Vista sector.
Gómez Ureña’s lawyer, Julio Santamaría Cesá, affirms that with this investment his client acquires 50% of the work and construction began. Later in 2013, Pérez and his associates proposed to their client to conclude the work with financing and it was then that the parties decided to go to the Reserve Bank. Check number 2083577, worth RD $ 661,399,622.00, was issued on January 31, 2013, under the administration of Vicente Bengoa.
“That is where we ceded the powers to go to the Bank, through the company Diseño Integral, we delivered the documentation to carry out the operation and that was duly agreed. Everything was going very well and we were periodically informed of the operations, ”explained Santamaría.
In 2016 Pérez proposed to Gómez Ureña that he buy the building, an offer that was rejected, since the intention was to operate a hospital in the place and the studies determined that it was not feasible. It was then decided to sell the building and divide the profits, as stated in the contract.
However, according to Gómez Ureña’s lawyer, in October 2017, Pérez y Asociados informed their client that the building had not yet been sold, when the documents obtained by Diario Libre indicate that the Board of Directors of the Banco de Reservas approved the purchase of the property on December 21, 2016 and the contract was signed on January 19, 2017.
Santamaría explains that the former Minister of Public Works of the PLD and his partners filed a complaint against the current senator for the Espaillat province, on August 22, 2018 before the Department of Crimes and Crimes against Property, requesting that the investigation that is carried out continue forward and until the last consequences, because “this will allow you to verify that, in reality, it is a matter that is beyond the interest and competence of the criminal system.”
This complaint was filed by the lawyers Ashley Andújar, Francisco Capellán Martínez and Manuel Ulises Bonelly Vega, who resigned to take the case and was later selected by the National Council of the Magistracy as a member of the Constitutional Court, last January.
The allegation of Freddy Pérez and his associates is that in the contract signed with Gómez Ureña it was established that the cost of the construction of the building would be US $ 5,647,238.11, which would be contributed by the partners in equal parts.
They explained that the cost of the construction was RD $ 1,086,521,926.98, of which RD $ 1,020,533,697.70 were contributed by them and that Gómez Ureña only contributed RD $ 65,000,000.00.
They refer that article seven of the contract provides that “the benefits generated by the work will be liquidated at the time of its conclusion and will be distributed in equal parts, that is, 50% for the engineers and 50% for the second part.”
The attorneys for Pérez and associates in the instance indicate that this part was drawn up “in a spirit of equity” and that thus “each of the parties should receive benefits in the same proportion of what was invested.”
Asked about the process and to give the version of the judicial process that is being followed by the lawsuit for the alleged distraction of more than 130 million pesos from the sale of the building, the lawyer Ashley Andújar limited herself to saying: “At the moment we have made the decision not to express any opinion in this regard ”.
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