The Iasi Court of Appeal ruled a final four-year prison sentence for Emanoil Petrea, a former officer of Romania’s Protection and Guard Service (SPP), for child pornography and sexual intercourse with a minor, reports local News.ro. SPP is the institution designated to protect and defend dignitaries.

The Iasi judges thus ruled a higher sentence than the one initially set by the Vaslui Court, of two years and eight months. Both Emanoil Petrea and the prosecutors from the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) filed appeals against the sentence ruled by the Vaslui Court.

Placed under preventive arrest in October 2016, on charges of child pornography, Emanoil Petrea admitted to the facts hoping that the judges will take this into account when ruling the sentence.

The prosecutors accused the former SPP officer of having produced and stored pornographic material in which minors, aged between 13 and 16 years, were having sex with him and several other men. Part of the investigators’ evidence was gathered during raids at Petrea’s vacation home in Costesti, Vaslui county. The footage was showing the girls having sexual intercourse with Emanoil Petrea and two other men during private parties organized at his house in Costesti.

In October 2016, the prosecutors also searched his house in Bucharest and the headquarters of the local television where he was working.

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com