Three months of pre-trial detention requested against doctor accused of sexual assault

Santo Domingo.- The Public Ministry requested three months of preventive detention against the doctor Wilver Armando Polanco Sanz, investigated for a complaint of alleged sexual assault filed by a patient who went to his health center in the municipality of Las Guáranas, Duarte province.

The hearing for the knowledge of the measure was postponed until February 23 by Judge Josefina Noemí Díaz, from the Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of Duarte, with the purpose of conducting an interview with the complainant through the Gesell Chamber system. According to the record, the events would have occurred on February 17 around 9:00 in the morning, when the woman, of Haitian nationality, was referred from a polyclinic in the municipal district of Los Limones, in Pimentel, to undergo a pelvic sonography in the defendant's office. The accusation establishes that during the procedure the specialist would have engaged in inappropriate conduct that led to the complaint. According to the authorities, the woman filed a verbal complaint with the National Police shortly after the incident, which allowed for the arrest of the doctor around 10:45 a.m. on the same day. The prosecuting body indicated that evidence has been gathered to support the complaint and that background checks are being carried out to determine if there are other similar cases. The case has been legally classified as aggravated sexual violation and violence against women, in accordance with articles 330, 331 and 309-1 of the Dominican Penal Code. The request was submitted by the Comprehensive Care Unit for Gender, Intrafamily and Sexual Crimes of Duarte, headed by prosecutor Sandra Sierra Difó, who requested that, if preventive detention is imposed, it be served in the fortress of the province. The process is in a preliminary phase and, in accordance with the principle of presumption of innocence, the accused maintains their constitutional rights until a final judicial decision intervenes.