ED files chargesheet against MP Revanth Reddy in cash for vote scam

In 2019, the ED grilled Revanth Reddy on the source of Rs 50 lakh bribe money offered to the nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson.

Hyderabad: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday filed a prosecution complaint before the Metropolitan Sessions Judge-cum-PMLA Special Court in Nampally against Congress MP A Revanth Reddy, MLA Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and four others in the cash-for-vote scam.

It also mentioned the names of four other persons — Bishop Harry Sebastian, Revanth Reddy’s aide Rudra Sivakumar Udaysimha, Mathaiah Jerusalem and former MLC Vem Narender Reddy’s son Vem Krishna Keerthan in the complaint.

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An ED release said the agency had initiated an investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau against Revanth Reddy and others. The ACB conducted a trap when Revanth Reddy and others were paying a bribe of Rs 50 lakh in cash to Elvis Stephenson, nominated MLA representing the Anglo-Indian community in Telangana State Assembly, to lure him to either abstain from voting or to vote in favour of the TDP candidate Narender Reddy, in the MLC election, which was to be held on June 1, 2015.

The ACB trapped and arrested the accused and filed a chargesheet after their investigation. The ED had recorded the statements of witnesses and arrested persons including Revanth Reddy, Harry Sebastian and Udaysimha who were involved in the actual handing over of the bribe amount of Rs 50 lakh to Stephenson.

They were also confronted with the available audio-visual recordings of the meeting in which Revanth Reddy and others took part to pay the bribe. The ED investigation established that Revanth Reddy, Venkata Veeraiah and others had conspired to bribe Stephenson to secure his vote in favour of Narender Reddy, a candidate proposed by Telugu Desam in the MLC election.

In pursuance of their conspiracy, the accused had contacted Stephenson and offered him a bribe of Rs 5 crore. Stephenson made a complaint to the ACB and a trap was laid and his encounters with the accused were secretly audio-video recorded. The arrested persons met the complainant at his house on May 30, 2015, and made the bribe offer. Revanth Reddy, R Harry Sebastian and Udaysimha came to the house of Malcolm Taylor who is a friend of Stephenson, to hand over the advance bribe amount of Rs 50 lakh in cash and were trapped by the ACB and taken into custody along with the seized cash.

The seized cash was handed over to the accused by Krishna Keerthan to help his father in the election, the press release added. The ED had provisionally attached the bribe amount of Rs 50 lakh seized by the ACB under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)-2002. Its investigations established that the accused committed the scheduled offence as well as the offence of money laundering by dealing with the bribe money which is nothing but proceeds of crime as per PMLA. Thus, the ED has filed a prosecution complaint against the accused to conduct the trial for the offence of money laundering.

 

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