Panama’s bail bond scam halted

Panama’s Public Ministry (MP) has suspended the practice of allowing defendants to use parcels of land as collateral for bail bonds.

The move follows a La Prensa investigation that revealed that  , in some cases, the value of the property had been dramatically inflated and the same parcels were used with the collusion of lawyers and officials to earn bail for several defendants in unrelated cases

The investigation  revealed that  there were significant questions about the properties used by former MP official Eva Lorentz and lawyer Alcibiades Ballesteros to post bail.

The exposure has led to the removal of Santiago Ortiz as the regional head of the Public Registry in Bocas del Toro. He had  allegedly used a computer system in his agency to change records to inflate the value of properties or to change ownership.

The director of the public registry, Luis Barria, said Ortiz will likely face criminal charges.

Barria was critical of officials who accepted appraisals of pieces of property without visiting the sites. Part of the problem was that lawyers and judges have gone along with the system.

Lots 332406 and 319525 farms, supposedly located in the districts of Rio Hato and La Pacora, respectively, were used by Lorenzm the former Director of Human Resources of the Public Ministry and Milagros Valdes the former prosecutor of Herrera and Los Santos Milagros Valdes, and the lawyer Alcibiades Ballesteros to avoid prison, after the corruption scandal, showing the influence of organized crime in the MP  that led to the departure of Giuseppe Bonissi from the Attorney General’s Office.

The de-activation of both estates,  has been ordered to avoid the issuance of registration certificates.  
Before  the blockage by the MP, Judge Jorge Brown  of the sixth criminal court accepted an additional guarantee of $308 000 using the farm 332406, for Anabella del Carmen Wolfschoon of Montenegro.
On June 1, 2011 – Gisel Olmedo, representing the Public Register, filed criminal charges against Santiago Ortiz, the regional head of the Public Registry in Bocas del Toro for the alleged commission of crimes against public administration.
Barria also criticized lawyers 'helping’ their clients in detention through mortgage securities and judges for accepting the figure "on the pretext that it  is current law."
He described the current system as "a tremendous business and dark market" in which lawyers are  and land owners are involved and advocated the elimination of the bonds of home equity release.