Romanian businessman and entrepreneur Cornel Penescu has had his sentence increased to two and a half years in jail for having bribed two Financial Police officers.

The Supreme Court order is final, but it gives the businessman the possibility of parole.

Penescu's jail sentence was upped from the initial five months ordered after prosecutors appealed the first court decision.

This is not Penescu's first jail sentence. He also got a three-year jail time sentence, without parole, for having bribed the former Craiova mayor with some EUR 50,000.

The former director of the store Pic, owned by Penescu, Gheorghiţă Pieca, was also sentenced to two years in jail, with parole.

The two former Financial Police officers who were bribed, Nicuşor Liviu Mîrţoiu and Iulian Popescu were sentenced to three years in jail.

The initial court order for the two was of one year with parole for each of them.

The court ordered six years and seven years respectively as 'trial period' for the four's paroles, during which they need to comply with several surveillance measures, including attending fixed meetings at the Parole Office, announcing any trip of more than eight days, communicating and explaining any job change, as well as letting authorities know of changes in their home address.

Penescu was accused of bribery in this case in 2009. According to prosecutors, Penescu gave the bribe of RON 1,000 for each of the two Financial Police officers via his store manager Pieca in 2007, in order to ensure the control over his two firms was a superficial one.

editor@romania-insider.com