A report from the Comptroller’s Office revealed anomalies in the management of public resources in the Community Board, which led to the sentence.
A guarantee judge sentenced the former representative of the district of Río Indio, in the district of Penonomé, to 60 months in prison. Eudocio Chiru Sánchezand to the former treasurer Lorenzo Alonso Pérezfor the crime of fraudulent embezzlement related to the irregular management of funds provided by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) for social works.
During a hearing held this Friday at the judicial offices of the province of Coclé, the guarantee judge Liliana Ortiz validated the prison sentence after an agreement reached between the defendants and the anti-corruption prosecutor Javier Mitre.
At the hearing, the prosecutor’s office provided an audit report from the Comptroller General of the Republic, which certified the existence of irregularities in the Community Board for an amount of $301,959.
According to the report, the anomalies were detected between 2009 and 2014 in the funds delivered by the MEF for the execution of social works in Río Indio.
The judge also imposed on both former officials the sanction of disqualification from the exercise of public functions for the same period of the main sentence, once it has been served.
Currently, the Public Ministry is carrying out investigations against representatives, former representatives, former treasurers and mayors for the irregular management of funds delivered by the National Decentralization Authority for social works.
So far, the Prosecutor’s Office has charged some 23 former representatives and former treasurers for the alleged commission of the crime of embezzlement, linked to the management of funds from the Social Interest Program of decentralization.
These investigations have their origin in a series of complaints presented to the Public Ministry by the National Decentralization Authority between the years 2019 and 2024.
