The Superior Court of Neiva granted him 10 more days to present his appeal. He could be acquitted in the Supreme Court of Justice.
DIARY OF HUILA, NEIVA
CARLOS ANDRES PEREZ TRUJILLO
The defense of the former mayor of Palermo, Helber Yesid Pinzón Saavedra, would have until May to support the extraordinary appeal.
With a bold strategy, the defense of the former mayor of Palermo managed to gain the necessary time to collect the material evidence to prove that the politician is innocent, or at least, that his sentence be further reduced.
The die is cast. Now the Supreme Court of Justice will decide the fate of the former deputy, who has been a fugitive from justice since August last year, after hearing the conviction handed down by the First Criminal Judge of the Neiva Circuit, who sentenced him to 24 years. from jail.
Just a few days ago, his defense managed in the second instance (Superior Court of Neiva), to reduce the sentence to 19 years. However, in the presence of legal and factual elements in his favor, they launched the appeal.
The time request
Time is no longer an enemy of convictions, for this reason his defense pleaded with the Court to give him more than the 30 days granted by law, to write and support this appeal before the Court.
The decision of the togados in Neiva was in his favor, recently, they granted him the amparo and allowed him to continue for another 10 days. In other words, if the term was set for April 17, with business days, the defense could propose its brief until May.
The reasons that the Tribunal had to grant more time were, among others: “declare that if, according to the words of the memorialist, the remaining 25 days are insufficient to “structure the claim”, well, on the one hand, on March 21 he received power of attorney from defendant Herlber Yesid Pinzón Saavedra, and another, described this matter as complex, since it must review the oral trial, whose development lasted for nearly 5 years, having to study the “dogmatic, factual and evidentiary” problems addressed in the rulings first and second instance; Yes, according to the current defender, he already has “a large part of the digital file”, but he needs to complete all the proceedings; if he also requested the “sending of the entire digital file” in order to have “absolute knowledge of the entire file”; if he affirmed that his request for an extension of the term to support the appeal, has as its sole purpose “the best preparation of the appeal for appeal at the legal level of the decision of the H. Tribunal”; and if the review of the action shows that the term to sustain the extraordinary appeal of cassation would expire on the following April 17; It is sensible and reasonable to accept the plea of the memorialist, granting him ten (10) additional days to sustain the appeal in a timely manner filed in order to fully preserve the right to due process of the sentenced person,” said the Superior Court of Neiva.
a long process
‘Chepe’ Pinzón, as he is known in the world of politics, is accused of the crime of embezzlement for appropriation in favor of third parties and a contract without compliance with legal requirements, for the irregular delivery of money in the so-called TIGSA case.
Pinzón Saavedra, has been mayor of the municipality of Palermo and at the time of his conviction (2022), he was a deputy from Huila.
The details of his background could be summarized as follows: Pinzón Saavedra disbursed $2 billion to Raúl Toro Pérez, from royalties. Management and investment trustee contracts were entered into. Achieving returns of 87 million in six months.
The investigation went further and established that in July 2007, the Treasury of Neiva (Huila) granted trust management and investment contracts to Toro for 2 billion pesos. Subsequently, they disbursed $4,000 million. In 2008, they gave the contractor $6 billion, which in about six months, rented more than $216 million.
For all this lawsuit, which has been going on for more than 10 years, the sentence against Pinzón also went to the payment of $1,084 million.
Not only was the former deputy accused, but also the former treasurers of Neiva, Yesid Orlando Perdomo Llanos and Alberto Calderón Gómez, who were sentenced to 17 years and 6 months in prison; and 14 years and 2 months, respectively.
The Prosecutor’s Office verified that these financial procedures did not comply with the legal requirements, and there was no study to verify the opportunity and convenience of investing resources of 14,000 million pesos, through a person who did not guarantee the return of the resources, represented a high risk of losing money and was not qualified or authorized or supervised by the Financial Superintendence to raise money on a massive scale or serve as a financial intermediary.
The ruling against the four involved in the criminal scaffolding imposed fines between 1,000 and 7,000 million pesos; and ordered the immediate capture of those sentenced to enforce the sentences in prison.
he renegotiated
The ‘brain’ of this operation was Raúl Toro Pérez, legal representative of Toro Investment Group SA (Tigsa), who in July 2007 signed Trust Entrustment Contract No. 732-0921 with the Trust Company (Fiducor), with the purpose of sole cash flow resource management facility owned by Tigsa.
Toro managed more than $11,000 million in the Neiva Mayor’s Office alone and another 2,000 million with the Palermo Mayor’s Office.
The whole problem arose because, although the regulation allowed the investment of excess liquidity in treasury securities (TES), it was done through Tigsa, which was not empowered to do so. It pretended to be an investment bank but was not registered in the National Registry of Stock Market Agents, nor was it monitored by the Financial Superintendence.
the first convicts
Former Secretary of the Treasury of Neiva, Luis Aníbal López, was the first sentenced to five years in prison for renewing the investments of surplus royalties for another 4,000 million pesos. Then the Fourth Criminal Court of the Neiva Circuit denied him the benefit of release and house arrest, but in 2019 the judicial office granted him house arrest.