Young Romanian judge confesses to trading sentence in high-profile case for money and a date

Romanian judge Geanina Terceanu has confessed to the anticorruption prosecutors that she took money from some famous Romanian football agents and football club owners to rule in their favor in a high-profile fraud case related to illegal player transfers. She admitted to taking EUR 195,000 from football agents Ioan and Victor Becali and another EUR 10,000 from local businessman Cristi Borcea, a former shareholder and executive president of the Dinamo Bucharest football club, according to local newspaper Adevarul. However, she said that she had never negotiated the sums she received from the Becali brothers. They first gave her EUR 40,000, which she used to buy a EUR 93,000 apartment. Then, they sent her another EUR 100,000 through an intermediary, just before she decided on the sentence in the case. She said she gave the money to her sister for keeping. She was paid another tranche after the sentence. She also added that she and Cristi Borcea met and liked each other, and that’s why she considered the EUR 10,000 he gave her as a gift, not a bribe for the sentence. She also said that they switched phone numbers and Borcea called her for a date. However, she said that she never went on that date. Geanina Terceanu was a judge at the Bucharest Court when she was assigned the famous “Transfers Case” in February 2009. The case focused on several player transfers made by Romanian teams to clubs abroad, in which the local clubs declared only fractions of the real transfer prices. The damage to the state budget was some USD 1.5 million, but the clubs themselves also lot money, because most of the transfer money went directly to the club owners and the football agents (some USD 10 million). Player agents Ioan and Victor Becali, several club owners, such as Cristi Borcea, Gigi Netoiu, George Copos, Jean Padureanu, club manager Mihai Stoica, and former footballer George Popescu, were indicted in this case. Judge Terceanu decided to acquit them of all charges, in April 2012. However, the Bucharest Court of Appeal changed the Bucharest Court’s sentence and convicted all the defendants to prison. Ioan Becali and Cristi Borcea got the harshest sentences: 6 years and 4 months in jail each, Victor Becali got 4 years and 8 months, and the others got between 3 and 4 years, no parole. Ioan and Victor Becali, Cristi Borcea, and Geanina Terceanu have been sent to court by the DNA in this new bribery case. Romanian prosecutors detain judge for EUR 220,000 bribe