<\/p>\n
Tapped phone calls played in court have provided further insight into the extraordinarily close relationship between the former notary of Budapest\u2019s District 5 and a local businessman, both defendants of an ongoing corruption trial.<\/p>\n
According to the phone calls, the notary, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki, and the businessman, J\u00e1nos Borzov\u00e1n spoke regularly and shared information on their private life just as about business. Borzov\u00e1n called the notary \u201cLaci\u201d or \u201cLacika\u201d, both informal versions of his first name.<\/p>\n
J\u00e1nos Borzov\u00e1n \u00a0was active in Budapest\u2019s central district through his construction company, getting several valuable contracts from the municipality while L\u00e1szl\u00f3 R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki was serving as the district\u2019s notary.<\/p>\n
Borzov\u00e1n is charged of asking money for influencing official procedures of the municipality. According to the prosecutors, he was cooperating in this with R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki. The third defendant, a restaurant owner, is charged of giving money to Borzov\u00e1n so that he help him obtaining a licence from the municipality.<\/p>\n
All three men are denying the charges.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor\u2019s office claims that Borzov\u00e1n and R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki committed crimes regarding two separate legal procedures. Direkt36 covered extensively the one that was revolving around obtaining a restaurant licence. According to the prosecutors, Borzov\u00e1n asked 1.5 million HUF (4800 euros) from a then co-owner of a place called Zizi Bar in return for arranging a license needed for longer opening hours.<\/p>\n
According to the charges, a few days after the phone conversation with the restaurant owner, Borzov\u00e1n indeed spoke with R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki about the license application. Another couple of days later, a colleague of the restaurant owner took the money to the place previously agreed upon, a downtown hotel that, according to the prosecutors, belongs to Borzov\u00e1n\u2019s business interests. The next day, the local government acknowledged the license application and registered the restaurant\u2019s late-night opening hours.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor\u2019s case is based partly on secretly tapped phone conversations. Borzov\u00e1n claims, however, that the prosecutors misinterpreted what happened. He acknowledged that he got 1.5 million forints from the restaurant owner but he claims that this money was in return for a construction work he arranged for Zizi Bar. He added that no invoice was issued because they had an informal agreement with the restaurant owner and that is why the work is not included in neither company\u2019s books.<\/p>\n
Borzov\u00e1n acknowledged that he had known about the pending licence of Zizi Bar. He also admitted that he talked about it with R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki but he claimed that the money from the restaurant owner had nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n
The rest of the charges involve a real estate deal. Prosecutor Zolt\u00e1n Andr\u00e9ka said that a company sold a property in District 5 in July 2012 but the new owner could not be registered in the land records as long as the municipality did not waive its right to buy the property. Due to the summer break, the municipality made this decision only in September but those involved in the real estate deal had to wait even longer. They needed an official copy of the resolution in order to proceed with the land records registration.<\/p>\n
It was then that one of the intermediaries involved in the real estate deal contacted Borzov\u00e1n and, according to the charges, asked him to help them get the resolution. The prosecutor said that Borzov\u00e1n agreed to do this and turned to R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki. According to the charges, Borzov\u00e1n wanted to make sure that it would be clear for the intermediary that it was he who arranged the resolution\u2019s issuance. The prosecutor said that this was important for Borzov\u00e1n because he wanted to cultivate the image that he is a person who can arrange official matters at the municipality.<\/p>\n
According to the charges, Borzov\u00e1n asked 500 thousand HUF (1.600 euros) from the intermediary but he refused to pay. The resolution was eventually issued in the middle of October, a month after the decision was made.<\/p>\n
At the hearing, Borzov\u00e1n claimed that he prosecutors\u2019 charges are baseless in this case, too. He said that he was in contact with the intermediary, a real estate dealer, because he wanted to sell one of his properties. He acknowledged that he became familiar with the matter of the resolution. He also said that he discussed it with R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki but he did it only to selflessly help the real estate dealer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spoke often and on various topics. I may have asked him about this too,\u201d said Borzov\u00e1n, who was described by the prosecutor as someone with a wide network of contacts in District 5.<\/p>\n
For years, Borzov\u00e1n was a major player in the district\u2019s construction business. Between 2000 and 2010, Borzov\u00e1n\u2019s company, BAU Holding 2000 Ltd., received contracts from the 5th district \u2013 often as member of consortia \u2013 totalling 6.5 billion HUF (20.6 million euros), procurement records show. Data analysis provided by the CEU Microdata research group shows that no other company won more from the local government in this period.<\/p>\n
After 2011, the total revenues of J\u00e1nos Borzov\u00e1n\u2019s companies started to fall, and they also received less work from the 5th District. At the same time, a new company, EU-Line, came to be a close partner of the municipality in construction works. Direkt36 showed in a previous article that there are several indirect links between EU-Line and J\u00e1nos Borzov\u00e1n but he claims that he had nothing to do with the company\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
The corruption trial made it clear that Borzov\u00e1n\u2019s business activity might have faded in District 5 but his connection with the notary remained strong. Apart from talking on a daily basis, Borzov\u00e1n also did favors for R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki. He arranged, for example, that the apartment of R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki\u2019s daughter got renovated at a discount price. R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki did not remember clearly when this happened but he said that it must have been sometime in 2013.<\/p>\n
Borzov\u00e1n also helped R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki when the notary needed new suits. He connected R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki with one of his friends, who was selling suits imported from abroad. Borzov\u00e1n said that R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki paid for what he bought he only helped with connecting the two people.<\/p>\n
The tapped phone conversations suggest that Borzov\u00e1n and R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki had a very informal relationship. In a call cited at the trial, Borzov\u00e1n told R\u00f3nasz\u00e9ki that \u201che shouldn\u2019t chill out too much.\u201d Borzov\u00e1n later told the investigators that he does not remember why he said this but added that he had a very good relationship with the notary so \u201cwe could afford to say things like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
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