Media mogul Dan Voiculescu has been sentenced with a 10-year prison sentence for money laundering and fraudulent privatization of the Food Research Institute (ICA), worth about €7.7 million.

The 67-year-old former senator and founder of the Intact Media Group used his political influence to cheaply privatize this institute. According to the Business Review, 12 other individuals were sentenced due to their involvement in an under-evaluation of the institute’s assets that allowed Voiculescu to buy it for €100,000.

Prosecutors claim that the state was damaged by more than €60 million through these actions. The Bucharest Appeals Court sentenced Voiculescu and his accomplices last Friday. In order to cover damages, his verdict contained orders to seize his property, television studios, land belonging to his Antena media group, and his family was ordered to pay €1.3 million. The case emerged in 2008, and Voiculescu received a five-year prison sentence in an earlier court, which he appealed. This verdict is the result of years of delayed and politically blocked judicial procedures, involving numerous media attacks on the judiciary as reported by the Times Colonist portal.

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