Sorina Pintea, photo: Agerpres
The Cluj Court of Appeal rejected the call formulated by the former PSD minister of health on Friday and ordered the definitive conviction of Sorina Pintea to 3 years and 6 months in prison in the file in which she was accused of taking bribes in a continuous form, according to the Portal of Justice.
“On the basis of art. 421 paragraph (1) point 1 letter b) of C. proc. Pen., Rejects, as unfounded, the appeal declared by the defendant PSÎM against the criminal sentence no. 113 of 26.04.2024 of the Cluj Court. Pursuant to art. 422 rap. At art. 398 rap. to pay the amount of 500 lei, with the title of judicial expenses advanced by the state.
The initial sentence of 3 years and 6 months was given on April 26, 2024 by the Bucharest Court. Sorina Pintea's lawyers appealed, and it was definitively rejected on Friday.
Sorina Pintea led the Ministry of Health to the Dăncilă Government, January 29, 2018 – November 4, 2019. The facts for which she was convicted were not committed in this capacity, but from the hospital manager.
Accused of taking bribes while driving the hospital in Baia Mare
Sorina Pintea was sued in April 2020, by DNA prosecutors, in the file in which she is accused of receiving bribes 10,000 euros and 120,000 lei during the period when she was a manager of the Emergency Hospital in Baia Mare.
DNA prosecutors have sued Sorina Pintea for bribery, in continuous form (two material acts).
DNA shows in the indictment that, as manager of the “Dr. Constantin Opriș” County Hospital in Baia Mare, Sorina Pintea would have received a bribe 10,000 euros and 120,000 lei.
According to prosecutors, between November 2019-February 28, 2020, Sorina Pintea would have claimed and received, through an intermediary, from the representatives of a commercial company, in two installments, the amounts of 10,000 euros (on December 20, 2019) and 120,000 lei (on February 28), which would not have been due.
The money represented a percentage of 7% of the value of a public procurement contract, which had as the object “Design and execution of the operating-operator block works of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery and adjacent spaces from the County Emergency Hospital” Dr. Constantin Opriș “Baia Mare”, concluded in 2019 by the hospital unit.
Pintea would have received the respective money inside the medical unit he was leading, and on February 28, 2020, after receiving the amount of 120,000 lei, in his office within the hospital, a flagrant was organized, says DNA. Prosecutors instituted insurance seizure on two lands of the former minister.
In this file, Sorina Pintea was in preventive arrest from February 29 until March 6, 2020, when she was released, being placed under judicial control.
The lawyers invoked, among others the poor health of the former minister. Sorina Pintea suffers, according to her public statements before being preventively arrested, dermatomyositis, a serious and rare autoimmune disease, for which cortisone and immunoglobulins are treatment. She asked several times to stay in the hospital, under guard, after being arrested.
