Media mogul Dan Voiculescu receives new jail sentence in blackmail case against RCS&RDS

Newsroom 12/05/2016 | 17:26

The founder of Intact media group, Dan Voiculescu, has received a two year jail sentence in a case involving the blackmail of an official from telecom giant RCS&RDS.

In the same file, the general manager of Antena TV Group, Sorin Alexandrescu, received a jail sentence of three years and six months. The daughter of Dan Voiculescu, Camelia Voiculescu, got a suspended sentence of two years.

The former head of tax authority ANAF, Serban Pop, got a two year jail sentence for the disclosure of classified information.

The decision taken Thursday by the Bucharest Court of Appeal is not final.

Intact Media Group said in a statement that it will appeal this decision, claiming it was unfair

Prosecutors said that Antena TV Group wanted to ink a broadcast deal with RCS&RDS for its own channels. While the negotiations where under way, the various media outlets of Intact had started a “smear” campaign against the telecom giant.

Antena TV Group wanted to get EUR 6.4 million annually from RCS&RDS, as part of a 5-year contract.

Alexandrescu had personally tried to blackmail the administrator of RCS&RDS, Ioan Bendei, so as to sign the contract, according to prosecutors.

In addition, Alexandrescu got secret tax information from the head of ANAF so as to get an upper hand during “negotiations” with Bendei.

Voiculescu is already behind bars, after he received a 10-year jail sentence for the illegal privatization of the Institute for Food Research (ICA). This new sentence will be merged with the old one, so he will not spend another two years in jail.

The anti-corruption prosecutors from the DNA worked on this file. According to certain media reports, the marketing and PR head of RCS&RDS, Florin Nemes, is the boyfriend of Laura Codruta Kovesi, the head of ANAF.

Kovesi has publicly rejected any link between her personal life and the case involving RCS&RDS.

Ovidiu Posirca

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