Senior bailiff accused of bribery

The head of the Ocnita Department for Enforcement of Judgments is accused of taking bribe. Oleg Putuntica, deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s Fraud Investigation Division, says that the employee was caught in the act of taking 400 USD from a former detainee. The person that offered the bribe in April 2006 was sentences to two years and five months in jail for committing a theft and was to be released in August 2008. For his exemplary behaviour, the man was set free, but banned from living the country. There were four months before his prison term expired, but the man wanted to go abroad to work and agreed with the head of the Ocnita Office of the Department for Implementing Court Decisions to register him monthly at the Office in his absence. The judiciary executor asked 400 USD for such a service, by 100 USD for every month. On October 15, 2007 the former detainee filed a complaint with the police. The head of the Ocnita Department for Enforcement of Judgments is investigated for passive corruption under the Penal Code. If found guilty, he is liable to a fine of 60,000 to 100,000 lei or to five to ten years behind bars, with the deprivation of the right to hold certain posts or carry out a certain activity for two to five years in both cases.