Blackmail trial between Antena Group and RCS&RDS continues

A new term in the blackmail trial between media entities Antena Group and RCS&RDS took place on January 7.

Sorin Alexandrescu (in picture), the head of Antena Group, Camelia Voiculescu, owner of the media group, Daniel Matiescu, manager of Intact Publishing and Dan Voiculescu, the founder of the Intact media group are under trial on blackmail accusations, according to Paginademedia.ro.

The persons who were heard in the file so far were Alexandrescu and Ioan Bendei, administrator of RCS&RDS.

The next hearing in this file will take place on February 4.

According to EVZ, Ioan Bendei , the administrator of RCS&RDS told the judge that Alexandrescu proposed to him “a contract in which we should broadcast by satellite the channels of Antena Group for five years, in exchange for a price of EUR 35 million.”

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In exchange for this deal, Alexandrescu allegedly said he would not reveal an alleged masked bribe in a contract signed between RCS and a company called Bodu SRL, owned by Dumitru Dragomir, former head of the Soccer Professional League (LPF).

“In mid April 2012, I was called by Sorin Alexandrescu, whom I had never met in person, but knew that he was the manager of Antena Group. He asked to meet me at Marriott the same day. He had he was in the possession of a contract I had signed with Bodu SRL and some additional papers, and this convention in fact represented a bribe. He said that if this matter went public, I would not be sitting at the same table, and suggested that I might get arrested. He did not say what contract it was, and I wrote down some things from it. He said he would not publish the contract if I accepted to sign the broadcast of the Antena Group channels by RCS&RDS,” said Bendei.

Bendei also said Alexandrescu proposed a contract in which RCS&RDS would broadcast the Antena Group channels for 5 years at a price of EUR 35 million. This was not in the RCS&RDS best interest, he added.

Bendei said he signed a paper in which he agreed that his calls be intercepted by the authorities.

“I met again Alexandrescu who had a copy of the contract on him. He said the investigation article was already written and would be published. I said that I would give him an answer in three days. I told him that I had talked to my colleagues and they had declined the offer. He kept threatening me that I would lose the bank financiang. After another meeting, an employee of the Financial Guard came, he was called Spulber. He asked me for the LPF contract because his bosses want to see it,” said Bendei, quoted by Evenimentul Zilei.

Daniel Matiescu, general manager of Intact Publishing said that he did not communicate with Sorin Alexandrescu and had normal professional relations with Camelia Voiculescu.

“Jurnalul National was coordinated by Marius Tuca and Dan Constantin, I did not talk to the about publihing critical news against RCS&RDS,” said Bendei.

The blackmail scandal between Antena Group and RCS&RDS broke out in May 2013. At that time, Alexandrescu was detained by the National Anti-corruption department under the accusation of blackmail. 

Otilia Haraga