A day after the former minister Chițoiu went to prison, the judges explain the reasons for the conviction and show the strategy by which he tried to escape innocently: The dead man is to blame

Daniel Chițoiu did not admit any guilt in the accident in which two people died, he blamed the deceased driver and put “untimely pressure on the judge”, according to the reasons for the conviction, consulted by HotNews. The former Minister of Finance, Daniel Chițoiu (PNL), was sentenced on Thursday by the Pitesti Court of Appeal to four years in prison with execution for an accident in 2019, as a result of which two people died and another needed 250 days of medical care. Shortly after the sentencing, Chițoiu presented himself to the Capital Police, being taken to the Rahova Penitentiary.

Sent to court for culpable homicide and culpable bodily injury, Daniel Chițoiu was convicted only for the first crime, in the case of the second, the statute of limitations intervened. In the first instance, at the Pitesti Court, Chițoiu was sentenced to 3 years with suspension. Prosecutors appealed the sentence, criticizing the punishment as too lenient.

• Aged 58, Daniel Chițoiu was finance minister in the governments of Ponta I and II, in the period 2012-2014, from the PNL. He was also a deputy in two mandates (2008-2016).

The accident caused by Daniel Chițoiu took place on December 26, 2019, in the town of Zamfirești in Argeș. The data reported by the police at the time showed that the former minister drove into the opposite direction hitting a car that was traveling in the opposite direction. Judicial sources indicated that he may have lost control of the wheel because he was talking on the phone. However, this hypothesis failed, the phone listing showing that at the time of the impact Daniel Chițoiu was not talking on the phone.

In front of the judges, the former minister pleaded not guilty, claiming that in fact he was the one who tried to avoid the accident because the driver traveling in the opposite direction would have entered his lane.

The hypothesis presented by Chițoiu was also supported by a party expert, paid by the former minister to carry out an extrajudicial expert opinion. No evidence from the file, the Court of Appeal of Pitesti states in its justification, supports Chițoiu's defense, and the extrajudicial expertise performed by the expert hired by him was based exclusively on his statements.

Neither during the investigation nor in court was it determined what caused Chițoiu to enter the opposite direction of travel. But this aspect, argue the judges of the trial and appeal courts, “has no relevance regarding the establishment of guilt because it is obvious that the defendant, when he reached the other direction of travel, was not paying attention to the road, being a factor/event that led to the loss of attention to the road”.

He blamed the victim

During the trial, Daniel Chițoiu blamed the driver of the car traveling from the opposite direction, an 82-year-old man, accusing him of his health problems. The witnesses heard at the trial stated that the said driver was driving legally, Chițoiu being the one who entered the opposite direction. In fact, in justifying the conviction, the judges emphasize that the driver who died was the one who tried to avoid the impact.

“The only maneuvers to avoid the collision were initiated by the victim who braked before the impact, but which unfortunately were not sufficient, while no such initiatives could be detected on the part of the defendant, a circumstance that strengthens the hypothesis taken into account by the first instance that the defendant had already lost control of his car,” states the reasoning of the Court of Appeal of Pitesti on January 8.

The judges also blamed Chițoiu's behavior during the trial

The judges criticized, in the sentencing decision, the former minister's lack of responsibility and his intimidating behavior during the trial.

“A procedural behavior of the defendant (and of his defense counsel, as the judge of the case also wanted to specify) exhibited before the first instance which we also consider to be unacceptable. Several actions of the defendant were scored by the first instance, through the defenders who assisted him at the time, such as recusal requests of the members of the panel (which experienced changes of title during the judicial investigation), bringing the panel to the knowledge of the fact that was referred to the Judicial Inspection in order to put undue pressure on the titular judge, the request for evidence to prove possible health problems of the victims and which, far from being related to the case, rather demonstrated a lack of responsibility towards what happened and finally, starting from the defendant's status as a public person, creating a climate of suspicion towards the impartiality of the trial panel”, the judges of the Pitesti Court of Appeal held in their motivation.

Judges' conclusions

The magistrates emphasize that the blame for the accident belonged exclusively to the former minister who “lost control of the steering wheel and entered the opposite direction, without having been obstructed in any way in traffic by another participant, on a heavily trafficked road sector, during an hourly interval and in time conditions that ensured good visibility”.

The attitude of non-recognition of guilt and the attempt to blame the victim “must also find its effects in the sanctioning regime”, concluded the judges of the Pitesti Court of Appeal who decided to increase the sentence from 3 to 4 years and to serve it in detention.

Thursday afternoon, following the sentencing, Daniel Chițoiu turned himself in to the Criminal Investigation Service of the Capital Police. From there, he was picked up by the police and taken to the Rahova penitentiary, where he will serve his sentence.