The court ruling is not definitive and may be appealed with the Bucharest Appeals Court.
Oprescu was detained by anticorruption prosecutors Saturday night after being caught receiving a EUR25,000 bribe he had allegedly demanded from people who became informants for prosecutors. According to prosecutors, Oprescu received the money through the head of an institution within the Bucharest City Hall.
Prosecutors said Oprescu was part of a group of civil servants working in Bucharest public administration who granted public works contracts to companies in exchange for receiving some of the profits back as bribes.
According to prosecutors, companies kept between 30% and 33% of the gross profit and the rest was given as bribes to employees of the Bucharest mayor, with 10% of the contracts’ value requested by Oprescu.
Oprescu will be suspended from office by the Bucharest prefect if judges decide to place him under preventive arrest and his attributions will be taken over by deputy mayor Cornel Pieptea (member of the National Liberal Party) or deputy mayor Dan Darabont (member of the Social Democratic Party).
Romanian prosecutors have launched a series of high-level corruption investigations in the past years.