VIDEO: Former Mayor Ernesto Moishundt cancels $21,000 debt with Treasury

The former mayor of San Salvador, Ernesto Moischund, was charged Monday with failing to pay $21,000 income tax withholding to workers at his agribusiness, Montegrand.

Hours later, he canceled that debt with the Finance Ministry and assured his lawyer, Arturo Muchondt, who hopes the case will be concluded next Wednesday at the preliminary hearing.

The investigation period corresponds to 2018. Francisco Enrique García Prieto Herelmann, who is the honorary consul in Denmark, has also been charged and will be notified of the charges against him.

Mueshund, who was wearing an armored helmet and flak jacket, was brought to the 10th Peace Court under tight security.

“That justice be done and that the (political) persecution stop,” he said succinctly during his presentation to the court.

Photo gallery: This is how former mayor Ernesto Moishundt was prosecuted

The prosecutor in the case said they requested the preventive detention of Mueschundt, while investigations are continuing in an investigative court.

“He replied and signed documents for the public treasury in which he stated that he had not, in fact, paid,” the public prosecutor said.

Interest and fines will add up to $21,000, so financial expertise will determine the total amount that can be paid and criminal action ends, according to the attorney general.

Arturo Muesund, a defender of the former mayor, revealed yesterday afternoon that this amount has already been paid in the Ministry of Finance and that he hopes at the preliminary hearing, which will be held next Wednesday, his release.

“The arrest of (Muyshondt) was made by his own company, not by the holdings that were in the mayor’s office,” said the attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado in an interview with the Salvadorina Telecommunications Front (TCS).

He confirmed that there are about 700 people affected in this operation and that the operation is continuing on its track,” Delgado said.

In the event that people are kept in the office of the mayor of the capital, Fernando Edgardo Portillo Linares, the former treasurer of the office of the mayor of San Salvador, has been freely treated since last October.

For this purpose, Portillo Linares adheres to a series of rules of conduct. He also paid a $10,000 bond, as the Eighth Peace Court decided at the time. Portillo Linares is accused of improperly allocating or withholding the work fees of 45 municipal employees.

The prosecutor in the case explained that the amount of $ 678,684 was withheld from the victims, but was not sent to the institutions: the Ministry of Finance, Agence France-Presse and banking agencies; to pay those affected.

You can read: Judge orders the arrest of former mayor Ernesto Moeschundt at home, but has been arrested in another case

Last Friday, San Salvador’s Second Inquiry Court decreed house arrest and the use of an electronic bracelet for the former mayor of San Salvador, to allegedly negotiate with gangs.

However, the police arrested him by order of the prosecutor’s office for the offense related to tax deduction.

The former mayor of the capital said on that day: “I welcome everyone to the dictatorship of Nebbukil. I am the first of many to come. They will do to any opponent what they do to me. And he held the dictator Neb Boukil responsible for everything that happens to me.”

Photo EDH: Jessica Humbanera

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