Vlad Botoș, USR MEP, is facing serious charges. In a video made public on Friday, June 7, on the State of the Nation Official YouTube channel, there is talk of a “corruption trail” and a “lack of preparation”, and the protagonist is the USR MEP.
Although the USR MEP has talked about transparency over time, he has never made his CV public, as journalist Valeriu Nicolae shows in the video clip above.
The political formation of which Vlad Botoș, the leader of USR Arad, is a member, claims that it is guided by the following values: truth, competence and meritocracy. However, despite the fact that since the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 requests have been made regarding the publication of MPs' CVs, only a few of them have responded to the request. Senator Diana Șoșoăca is among those who have not made their CV public.
According to art. 12 of law no. 96 of April 21, 2006 regarding the State of deputies and senators, “deputies and senators must show transparency in parliamentary activity”.
Vlad Botoș reacted to the accusations brought by the vice-president of USR Anglia. Photo Facebook/Vlad Botoș
Following a notification received from a reader regarding the lack of Vlad Botoș's CV, journalist Valeriu Ciolan addressed him in January 2022. At that time, the USR MEP stated that he would make it public. However, even until now, the CV has not been published.
The discoveries of the journalist Valeriu Nicolae
Journalist Valeriu Nicolae made some discoveries, after coming across Botoș's CV. In 2018, according to the discoveries made by the journalist, the USR MEP claimed that he was the manager of a company in the automotive field for more than a decade.
What's more, according to the information provided by the journalist: between 2006-2010, Vlad Botoș studied at the Faculty of Legal Sciences at the Western University “Vasile Goldiș” in Arad, and between 2008 and 2016 he held the position of project manager in Bulgaria.
Vlad Botoș stated that he was a member of the PNȚCD for seven years, later joining the ranks of the Forța Civică party. After submitting his resignation, Botoș expressed his support for USL (PSD-PNL-PC alliance).
Later, from 2012 until 2015, he was a member of the National Liberal Party. During that period, Botoș became the president of the municipal youth organization. In May 2014, the current MEP of the USR was left without a position. Later, he declared that he left the PNL when the merger with the PDL took place, and in 2015 he claimed to have resigned.
The merger between PNL and PDL was signed in July 2014.
Two years later, the current Mayor of the Capital, Nicușor Dan, offered him a waiver, and Vlad Botoș joined the Save Romania Union Party.
The accusations brought by Liana Pop, vice-president of USR England
It all started in 2022, when the USR MEP paid a visit to Lanzarote, Spain, to Liana Pop's villa.
During the visit in question, Botoș confessed to Liana Pop that he was going to buy a villa in the area and asked for her help. The agreement, according to the woman, was as follows: the two would invest equally in the villa.
After Botoș deposited 90,000 euros in the account, Liana Pop invested in the villa. Also, the profit from the rental of the villa was to be divided half-half, according to the confessions made by her.
The woman only received her share of two rentals, after which she never saw a single person again.
“Changed the agent, changed the keys to the villa, everything. Without notifying me, without telling me anything at all“, confessed Liana Pop.
The villa was named after the MEP, the woman claims. “I had blind faith in this man“, she added.
Seeing that things had changed, the woman asked the politician for the money he invested in the villa: “I talked to him, he kept giving me the money“.
The two no longer spoke directly, but had an intermediary – a colleague from the diaspora. The woman confessed that she was sending the receipts to Botoș by e-mail. At some point, she was contacted by the intermediary and told that the USR Arad leader would return her money if she sent him the receipts.
Next, the woman provided the intermediary with the receipts to the effect: “He (n.ed. Vlad Botoș) he refuses to make any more payments because he didn't expect me to be able to get all the bills“, she stated.
At the same time, Liana Pop claims that the MEP “absolutely refuses any communication”.
“He wants to monopolize my money”, said the vice-president of USR Anglia.
In addition to the above, she claims that, during the voting period for the European Parliament elections, Vlad Botoș believed that he would not be supported by BN.
“He was manipulating key people” for “to get votes, in case the BN is not going to support him“, she also said. Culmea, according to the woman, Vlad Botoș supported the same people in the elections that the BN supported: “I realized I was being manipulated.”
Another situation was presented by Pop, at the time when she was going to purchase, together with a colleague from Italy, a plot of land in Timișoara.
She would have asked Botoș for help, as she wanted to open a business with solar panels: “I was asking him for information“.
Kindly, the MEP jumped to help Liana Pop, but the profit was to be divided among three.
According to the statements made by the woman, Vlad Botoș requested that his part be offered to him in cash.
After a few months, Botoș allegedly got in touch with a man from the PSD and informed the woman that she had to pay 30,000 euros for things to be resolved. “solve”.
“When he told me that we had to pay 30,000 euros, I think, how much was for the one from PSD and how much was for him“, she also said, who specified that “I was manipulated, clearly”.
The reaction of Vlad Botoș
The reaction of the USR MEP did not take long to appear. Vlad Botoș announced on Saturday, June 8, on his Facebook account that he will appeal to the court. He also described Liana Pop as “a hedgehog“.
“There appeared last night a ridiculous and desperate attempt to influence the elections at the last second ignoring any minimal professional ethics and claimed dignity of a so-called “journalist”.
All the insinuations about irregularities and ambiguities in connection with my career and the house I bought with proper documents, with a 20-year loan from the bank, have no other purpose than to discredit and denigrate me as a politician on the pesedist-penalist method of throwing slanderous accusations into the public space the day before the elections.
This denigration and distribution of this obvious blackmail cannot remain without legal consequences!
I am a person of integrity, very attentive to every decision I make and its consequences. There were years of continuous attacks for the simple reason that I was ahead of Mr. Valeriu Nicolae on the USR-PLUS list in the 2019 European Parliament elections.
One day before some enormously important elections for Romania, the great investigation of the “civic” Mr. Valeriu Nicolae is a ridiculous attempt at personal revenge through a string of slanders and despicable lies thrown into the public space.
It is very clear to me that this blackmail must stop and I will take legal action.
The lady who appears in this material is a prick and as I threatened she is trying to blackmail for which she will answer in court. Likewise Valeriu Nicolae who tries to deal with his frustrations through these ordinary slanders.
I will go to court, I will sue them for slander, defamation and insult. Is enough“, the relevant post states.
