Darius Vâlcov, former Minister of Finance and former mayor of the municipality of Slatina, sentenced to six years in prison for acts of corruption, will remain in detention. The Focșani Court on Thursday rejected his request for parole as unfounded.
The solution pronounced by the court in Focșani can be contested, informs Agerpres.
The decision published on the court's website is as follows: “Rejects as unfounded the request for conditional release, made by the petitioner-convict Vâlcov Darius Bogdan, detained in the Focșani Penitentiary. It sets a deadline for reiterating the request for conditional release 6 months, from the finality of this decision, after which the request can be renewed or a proposal for conditional release can be made. It notes that the petitioner-convict was assisted by a chosen lawyer”.
Darius Vâlcov requested conditional release in a case pending at the Focșani Court starting from March 16.
Reduced sentence, following an extraordinary appeal
In November of last year, the six-year sentence received by Darius Vâlcov was reduced to five years, after a panel of five judges from the Supreme Court granted him an extraordinary way of appeal – the cassation appeal – and found that the statute of limitations had expired for the act of influence peddling.
He was left with a five-year sentence for money laundering.
Definitively sentenced in May 2023, Darius Vâlcov fled to Italy before the sentencing, being extradited to the country in August 2023 and incarcerated at the Rahova Penitentiary.
Two other corruption cases
Darius Vâlcov had two more corruption cases before the courts, managing to get rid of them.
Thus, in November 2021, the Craiova Court of Appeal acquitted him in a case in which he was accused of instigating the giving and taking of bribes.
In March 2023, the Craiova Court of Appeal also annulled a sentence of 6 years and 6 months in prison for bribery, on the grounds that the facts he was accused of had expired.
The Tables folder
In the Tablourilor File, Vâlcov was sent to court in May 2015 for influence peddling, money laundering and carrying out financial operations, as commercial acts, incompatible with the function, assignment or assignment that a person performs or concluding financial transactions, using the information obtained by virtue of his position, assignment or assignment, in continuous form.
According to DNA, during 2009, the businessman Theodor Berna, the administrator of the Tehnologica Radion company, contacted Darius Vâlcov, at that time the mayor of the municipality of Slatina, to whom he proposed that, in exchange for offering support in influencing the decision-makers within the contracting authority (SC Compania de Apa Olt SA), in order to win tenders for works located in Slatina, Scornicești, Piatra Olt and Dragănești, he would give 20% of the amount received, according to the execution contracts.
The proposal was made in the context in which, in November 2008, the project “Extension and rehabilitation of water and wastewater systems in Olt County” had been approved at the government level, whose final beneficiary was SC Compania de Apa Olt SA, regional operator, the financing being provided, in the majority, from non-refundable European funds, according to the prosecutors.
Within this project, three contracts were concluded: “Rehabilitation and expansion of the water and sewerage network in the cities of Scornicesti and Potcoava”, “Rehabilitation and expansion of the water and sewerage network in the municipality of Slatina” and “Rehabilitation and expansion of the water and sewerage network in the cities of Drăgăneşti Olt and Piatra Olt”.
On the occasion of the bidding procedures related to the awarding of the three contracts, DNA claimed, the members of the commission proceeded, at the urging of Darius Vâlcov, in an abusive manner, to remove some eligibility conditions from the specifications in order to favor the Tehnologica Radion company.
As a result, Tehnologica Radion won the tenders organized within the project “Extension and rehabilitation of water supply and wastewater systems in Olt county”, being signed contracts with Compania de Apa Olt for several works, worth 78.2 million lei.
According to DNA, Theodor Berna and Darius Vâlcov mutually agreed that the sums of money should be remitted to the latter, in cash, in lei and only at the company's headquarters.
Based on this agreement, between January and March 2011, Darius Vâlcov regularly appeared at the headquarters of Tehnologica Radion, where he received the total amount of 1.2 million lei, in three installments of 400,000 lei each, the remittance being made whenever the contractor Compania de Apa Olt made payments to the company's account, the investigators also claimed
Also, between April and December 2011, Darius Vâlcov received from Theodor Berna, through Minel Prina, the total sum of 2,500,000 lei, in five installments of 500,000 lei each, according to DNA. In addition, during the period 2012-2013, Darius Vâlcov received from the businessman, through several companies, the sum of 3.08 million lei, the anti-corruption prosecutors established.
