2023-09-15 16:23:27
The investigation into the issuance of apocryphal driver’s licenses that began in Bariloche seven years ago took a new step yesterday with the sentencing of two years of suspended prison imposed in an abbreviated trial on municipal worker Marcos Aguirre.
Prosecutor Guillermo Lista, with the agreement of the plaintiff lawyers who represented the municipality, attributed the crimes of breach of public official, ideological falsehood and fraudulent administration. But it disassociated itself from the figure of illicit associationfor which three other women, involved in the same events, have already been convicted.
Lista explained that there is still one defendant, Marcelo Oyarzo, who is also accused of illicit association and would go to trial because he did not accept the alternative procedure.
The long process had also originally involved another dozen agents, who were dismissed last February due to lack of evidence.
The legal advisor of the municipality Karina Chueri said that all those involved in the trout license scam are still municipal employees, although they were transferred to other areas other than Transit. He pointed out that now with the signed sentences “summaries must be reactivated “that had been suspended pending the resolution of Justice.”
According to the prosecution it was proven that Marcos Aguirre intervened in 149 illegal actswhich consisted of the irregular preparation of national driver’s licenses, between December 2014 and August 2016. Municipal employees prepared false statements to comply with background and traffic violation requirements, which were not included in the applicants’ files.
This conduct generated a debt for the municipality (at that time) of 121,625 pesos with the Ministry of the Interior, because it acted as a withholding agent for the mandatory taxes for the issuance of licenses.
Aguirre’s participation was confirmed by the content of at least three wiretaps, as indicated by the prosecutor. He said that “There was a lack of evidence” to reach him with the accusation of illicit association. In other words, it was not proven that he had participated with the others responsible for the fraud in a premeditated action with hierarchies and division of roles.
Last February they were convicted of that more serious figure Alicia Vega, Mariana Villalobo and Malén Castro, who accepted a three-year suspended sentence also in “full agreement of the parties”. Both Aguirre and the three women also face a perpetual disqualification from holding public office with financial responsibility.
The defendant’s defender, Sebastián Arrondo, said that they adhered to what was stated by the prosecutor and presented it as an achievement on their part to have managed to exempt Aguirre from the accusation of illicit association.
Before ruling, Judge Romina Martini fulfilled the task of asking the accused if he explicitly assumed responsibility for the events attributed to him. Aguirre answered in the affirmative and said he also understood the scope of the sentence and the behavioral guidelines that were imposed on him, and that they might take him to jail if he did not comply.
The case for the adulterated licenses, as the prosecutor recalled, began by chance and from a suspicion by the municipal judge of misdemeanors Débora Bietti, who, when processing certain traffic violations, requested the supporting files of some licenses that were generated for her. doubts and found that they did not exist. “That was the tip of the iceberg that uncovered this tangle,” said Lista, in reference to a modus operandi that spread with hundreds of cases that caused economic damage and “discredit” to the municipality.
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