Santo Domingo.- A National District judge sent a merchant to spend one month in the jail at Najayo, after he was caught making an illegal connection to the power lines, the first such case ever recorded in the country.

Electrical System Assistant prosecutor Moisés Ferrer called the case unprecedented, since temporary incarceration had only been previously ordered for cable theft and the installment and use of fraudulent systems, but not for connecting to the grid to steal energy. “That’s something intangible.”

He said Permanent Attention judge Jose Alejandro Vargas handed down the ruling against Alexander Reyes, who was charged after being detained on Tiradentes avenue in the sector La Agustina, where he made a direct hook up from the Electricity Distributor Company EDESUR’s power lines to his store.

“It’s understood that it’s an important case since the judges are becoming aware that the staling of electrical energy is an infraction which must be punished by the country’s courts,” Ferrer said.