The Prosecutor’s Of Oscar Arias, against two women for alleged extortion, who requested 25 million colones in exchange for not publicly denouncing him for alleged sexual crimes.
The complaint was filed by the lawyers of the former president in March before the Prosecutor’s Office of Pavas after a woman named Ramírez demanded Arias’ lawyer payment as negotiation for her client (mother of the lawyer) not to report him for alleged abuses she would have suffered by the former president.
In the document, the Prosecutor’s Office indicates that the dismissal is requested because it is not possible to prove that “the accused Rojas has tried to intimidate or threaten the complainant in a personal capacity and much less utter a serious threat or intimidation against Mr Oscar Arias Sánchez”.
In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office says that in the audio recording that was presented as evidence, “no act or phrase that could be considered intimidating or threatening, directed towards the denouncing lawyer and less towards Mr. Oscar Arias Sánchez himself, who was not present at the meeting (…)”.
According to the Fiscalia, the conduct of the accused “cannot be described as extortion”.
Mr. Arias filed an action against Rojas (the lawyer) and her client, a woman named Ramirez (the mother of the lawyer) who alleges that in 2015, during the presidential campaign, while at the Arias private home she was a groped by the former president. Apparently, that disturbed Ramirez for many years and upon learning of the criminal complaints filed against Arias (by other women), she sought to obtain ¢25 million colones to keep silent and not denounce the case.
Arias faces formal charges of sexual abuse by seven women, the first by a doctor identified by her last name Arce, who alleges that the former president grabbed her breasts and inserted several fingers into her vagina.
Veteran journalist Ana Eleonora Antillón also filed criminal charges against Arias; so did another journalist identified by her last name Morales; the editor of Arias’s book surnamed Araya; a sociologist surnamed Fontana; a former beauty queen surnamed Morales; and Catherine A. Black, American political scientist of Argentine-Swiss origin.
