Page 44 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

Cochez filed a formal complaint for undue use of government resources. La
Prensa, in its May 5 issue (page 1A) covered the story:

Public resources used for pro-government campaign.
By José Quintero De León

Dr. Aurelio Correa, Electoral District Attorney, caught an employee of
the Ministry of Finances and the Treasury as he was busily making dozens
of wooden flagstaffs for banners of the pro-government Democratic
Revolutionary Party on the ground floor of the Ministry’s building.

The worker surprised by the Electoral District Attorney in the
commission of this electoral crime was carpenter Teófilo Gómez. Gómez

admitted “making sticks for PRD flags” after Guillermo Cochez, Esq., a
Cristian Democrat candidate for Congress, filed the appropriate
complaint at the District Attorney’s office together with Guillermo
Márquez Amado, Esq.

Correa went to the Ministry in person, accompanied by his secretary, Mr.

Belisario Herrera, and asked to see the Minister, Dr. Ricaurte Vásquez.
The minister disclaimed any knowledge of any crime being committed at
his department. Minister Vásquez also gave assurances that he had
instructed all his employees not to conduct political activities within the

building and its dependencies. He was unable to produce the
memorandum documenting these instructions. Messrs. Romero
Roquebert and Dugan are being charged with using public resources for
partisan political purposes. Their names appear in unsworn statements
given to the Office of the Electoral District Attorney. Roquebert and
Dugan oversaw this operation under order from the PRD.

Both Roquebert and Dugan initially claimed that the sticks in question
were to be placed on the building’s windows to secure them against
potential break-ins. This was later disavowed in the presence of District

Attorney Correa himself based on the preliminary statement by carpenter
Gómez, who admitted the crime.

As regards the details of the gasoline caper, the following except from “En
Pocas Palabras”, the often-quoted column in La Prensa (April 12, page 8C), is quite
explicit: