The prosecutor of the Lava Jato Special Team, José Domingo Pérez, yesterday asked the Judiciary to impose 36 months of preventive detention on former regional president Yehude Simon, so the prosecutor’s office estimates that Simon would have 28 years and 4 months of punishment custodial One of the requirements to impose pretrial detention is that the crimes charged amount to sentences greater than 4 years in prison.
The Prosecutor’s Office accuses Simon of receiving $ 300,000 from the Brazilian construction company for his re-election campaign to the regional government of Lambayeque in 2006. According to the fiscal thesis, the money for the former premier was allocated from box 2 of Odebrecht and delivered to Pablo Salazar, former manager of the Olmos Special Project, for whom, as well as the former congressman, this limiting measure was requested.
On February 24 of this year, Judge María de Los Ángeles Álvarez ordered the preliminary detention for 10 days against Simon and Salazar, as well as the search of their homes.
In this regard, Edwin Espinoza, Simon’s lawyer, told Correo that the Prosecutor’s Office failed to prove that his sponsor received money and that his accusation is based only on sayings that they will refute at the time.
‘The Prosecutor’s Office has so far failed to convince Mr. Yehude Simon to receive money, everything is in the third person and it is about said, nothing was corroborated. No person, not even Mr. Barata said he gave him money or he asked for it. Nor did Mr. Pablo Salazar mention that he gave money to Mr. Simon or he was left with some money. We are going to refute the arguments of the Prosecutor, we have not yet been notified of the tax requirement’, he said.
Accusations
The imputation for collusion
The first is collusion. For the prosecution, around the Trasvase Olmos project, it would have been agreed to grant the good pro to one of the bidders, in this case, Odebrecht, establishing favorable conditions that allowed the viability of the work and obtaining the good pro by said company, which finally happened on July 22, 2004. This, in exchange for the company giving economic benefits to the members of the criminal organization.
Among the irregularities, it is highlighted that there was an agreement so that the rate for the maximum price of water transferred (redirected) obtains a greater profit by not including the discount for said cofinancing received to the concessioned work. In return for this, the Peruvian State was obliged to pay more improperly for the water transfer service so agreed.
Money laundering
Prosecutor José Domingo Pérez attributes to Simon, Salazar and Javier Málaga for having committed money laundering in the modality of transfer, conversion, possession, and concealment corresponding to the sum of US $ 300,000, coming from Box 2 of the Structured Operations Division (bribery department) of the Odebrecht company, which occurred in 2006, these illegal assets having been inserted into the economy of our country, in the context of the elections for regional governments in the department of Lambayeque. The investigation of this illicit includes the period between 2004 and 2011.
Among the indications of this illicit, the Public Ministry refers to the acquisition of a property by Yehude Simon in Groove in September 2009, for the amount of US $ 90,500.
Criminal organization
According to the tax requirement, a criminal organization would have been established within the state apparatus (regional government) that had among its aims to commit acts of corruption favoring Brazilian companies to make concessions and public works in the Lambayeque region, one of these being the Brazilian business group Odebrecht, continuing as a mechanism of corporate and state corruption.
Jorge Barata
The document takes into account the statement given by Pablo Salazar Torres on February 26 and notes that there was a relationship of trust between Simon and former Odebrecht superintendent in Peru, Jorge Barata.
‘It is noted that there was a relationship of friendship between Yehude Simon Munaro and Jorge Henrique Simoes Barata, representative of Odebrecht in Peru since he would have been a sponsor of the promotion at the Algarrobos School of Chiclayo, one of the sons of Yehude Simon Munaro in 2007’, the document notes.
The reelection campaign
The prosecutor’s office relates the irregularities in the concession of the Trasvase Olmos project with the 2006 campaign, in which Simon was reelected as regional governor.
‘Although the concession contract for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the transfer works of the Olmos project were signed in July 2004. The effective collaborator has said that in this context of the concession there were requests for money, which were made in the context of the realization of the regional electoral campaigns’, points out the document based on the testimony of Barata.