Head of Neamt County Council sentenced to prison in corruption case, wanted by police

Ionel Arsene, the president of Neamt County Council and one of the most influential Social Democrat (PSD) leaders in Romania, received a final sentence of six years and eight months in jail in a corruption case.

However, the Romanian Police added Arsene to their Most Wanted list after he failed to turn himself in and the police officers assigned to make the arrest didn’t find him at his house. According to Digi24 sources, he is believed to have left for Italy two weeks ago.

Anticorruption prosecutors sent Ionel Arsene to court in 2018 on charges of influence peddling. They said that he received EUR 100,000 to influence persons from the management of the National Integrity Agency (ANI) into filing conflict of interests and incompatibility charges against a local administration official. This happened in 2013 when Arsene was a deputy in Romania’s Parliament. The person who paid him the EUR 100,000 turned witness in this case.

The prison sentence ruled last Friday is lower than the one ordered last year by the judges in Bacau, who first analyzed this case and decided on a sentence of over 8 years of detention.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea)