house arrest for Gustavo Trebucq, Ernesto Blanco, Alejo Damia and Lucrecio Lanza Castelli

The 10th Crime Chamber of Córdoba ordered this Wednesday the deprivation of liberty of four defendants in the case for alleged misappropriation of fiscal land next to the Suquía river, in the provincial capital, in the so-called “Torres del Río” case. After the allegation of the prosecutor Raúl Garzón, and responding to his request, the judges deliberated and decided on the “home” arrests of the businessman and stockbroker Gustavo Oscar Trebucq, the notary public Lucrecio Lanza Castelli and the lawyers Ernesto Alejo Blanco and Alejandro José Damia , Cobrex tax advisors.

After the prosecutor’s request and after alleging several complainants, the court went on to deliberate and returned with a “Solomonic” decision: house arrest.

The four defendants must remain in their homes and only leave to go to trial. The precautionary measure is until next week, when the verdict is heard.

The resolution clarifies that the four addresses will have a police order for the next seven days.

In addition, an obligation was imposed on them: they must leave every day at 6 and 22 to communicate their presence to the uniformed man outside.

criminal maneuver

The accusation maintains that a complex maneuver was designed to appropriate public land on the north side of Suquía, in the General Paz neighborhood and next to the 24 de Septiembre bridge.

A property belonging to the firm Bergallo y Pastrone (and their heirs) would have been subject to an expropriation by the Province in the early 1950s. But the defendants point out that this operation was not carried out, that it was not paid for, for which those lands were not in the public domain. Businessmen, lawyers, notaries, an engineer, public officials and other professionals were involved, among the 16 defendants.

The prosecutor’s decision to request the arrests was due to the “specific risk of flight” of some defendants and the possibility that an evasion “puts the end of the process in check.” The same situation occurred a few hours earlier, when the same Crime Chamber decided to arrest four defendants in the case for alleged real estate fraud by the Ribeiro Construcciones firm.

In this case, the owner of the firm, Jorge Ribeiro, and his son-in-law Carlos Castro went to the Bouwer prison. Instead, the businessman’s daughters, Georgina and Ana Ribeiro, received the benefit of house arrest.

The reason for the arrest was the same: to guarantee the reading in a few days and prevent the completion of the oral process from being frustrated.

Returning to the Torres del Río case, the allegations began with the presentation of the civil plaintiffs. The official prosecutors –Garzón and the prosecutor Laura Battistelli– presented their conclusions and formulated the requests for sentences, mostly effective imprisonment.

In addition, for almost all the defendants – mostly professionals – they requested disqualifications.

penalty requests

Garzón was in charge of reading the request for sentences for the 16 defendants at mid-morning this Wednesday. For Trebucq he requested seven and a half years in prison, while for the lawyers Damia and Blanco, seven years and 10 months in prison, while for the two notaries, Lanza Castelli and Daniel Eduardo Ahumada, he requested six and five years.

The defendant for making one of the land purchases, Gustavo Roca Feigin (five years); the widow of the original owner of the property, Carmen Graciela Chacón de Salomón (five years old); Celia Victoria Altamirano Ahumada, who was a Cadastre official (four years in prison); the notary public Roberto Francisco Brusa (four and a half years), and Juan Manuel Rocha Fernández, who was an official of the Municipality of Córdoba (four years).

The engineer who made measurements on the land, Roberto Esteban Crosetti, has a request for three and a half years in prison; the notary Esteban Ferrer Frontera supports a requirement of three years and two months of confinement; The children of the Salomón-Chacón couple, Cristian Leonardo and Daniel Alejandro, received a request for three years in prison, as well as the accused of being the first buyer of the properties, José Luis Nelli.

In addition, Ricardo Noé, who was an official of the Cadastre Directorate, received a request for a sentence of one and a half years in prison.

Defender’s reaction

Closing his plea, Garzón requested the arrest of the lawyers Damia y Blanco and the notary public Lanza Castelli, whom he requested that they be ordered into pretrial detention.

As for Trebucq, he requested that the cessation of the revocation of the preventive detention that he had already served for more than two and a half years, during the investigation, be declared.

But the prosecutor’s request had a reply from Trebucq’s defender, Tristán Gavier, who in a fiery speech complained about what he considered an unjustified request.

He recalled that his client “complied with everything” and regretted that an eventual arrest would harm his argument.

The lawyer Gavier advanced: “In my plea, I am going to demonstrate the blatant falsehood and without evidence of the prosecution.” Addressing the members Juan José Rojas Moresi (president), Carlos Palacio Laje and Mario Centeno, the defender asked: “Let’s not cheer up political power.”

Then, without the court having withdrawn to deliberate to decide the request for imprisonment, the allegations continued with the turn of the private complainants, among them, José Cafferata Nores.

After the decision of the judges, the allegations continued.

The trial will continue in the coming days with the extensive round of arguments from the defense attorneys and it is estimated that the verdict will be heard no later than Thursday the 14th of this month.