A case against Norberto Oyarbide is reactivated for illicit enrichment

Lucia Salinas

02/20/2020 - 10:06

• Clarín.com
• Politics

A year elapsed since the case against Norberto Oyarbide was initiated for alleged illicit enrichment. After Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral excused himself from taking the file, he began the discussion with his partner Julián Ercolini on who should investigate the estate of the former magistrate. Months passed before a court was appointed and it was when the case returned to the Prosecutor's Office of Jorge Di Lello who analyzes to re-intimate Oyarbide to justify his assets, something he refused to do twice. In addition, Claudio Blanco - former partner of the former judge - was intimidated to appoint a lawyer since he has not had one since last August. A series of banking measures were promoted over other defendants.

In December 2018, prosecutor Jorge Di Lello made the first justification requirement for former judge Norberto Oyarbide to explain his capital increase. A year passed and he never responded. Another intimidation continued to give an account to the courts about the formation of their assets. Nor did he respond.

To Oyarbide's refusal to respond to the federal prosecutor's request, it was added that for several months the case had no judge since Rodolfo Canicoba Corral had excused himself from driving the file. He argued that for having made a request for a political trial against Oyarbide in the 1990s because of the scandal of the Spartacus brothel, he was not in a position to follow the cause and the file fell to his peer Julian Ercolini. But he also rejected it because of a conflict of competition. But a week ago, the Buenos Aires federal Chamber determined that it is Canicoba Corral who stays with the investigation.

The former magistrate has all the expired deadlines to explain the reason for his increase in assets and a series of irregularities detected during the investigation.

In any case, the prosecution could advance in another section of the case involving a group of companies that, after a cross-linking of data, could have “links with the investigated maneuvers”, that is to say: illicit enrichment, according to judicial sources explained to Clarín.

However, the section whose main implication is Oyarbide was stopped before the dispute of the judges that was settled by the Buenos Aires federal Chamber. Prior to that discussion due to the jurisdiction of the case, the prosecution had already made two justification requirements for Oyarbide to provide explanations about its assets. In December, it was a year since Di Lello signed the first. Notified and with deadlines absolutely expired, the former judge never gave answers. More than twelve months have passed.

With the file again in the prosecution, after in December it was confirmed that Canicoba Corral is the judge in charge, the case returned to the prosecution. Di Lello analyzes a new request to Oyarbide to be accountable for his assets. According to judicial sources, the next instance could be a request for a call for investigation by the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Among the measures promoted by the Prosecutor's Office, Blanco - former Oyarbide couple - was called to appoint a new lawyer since he has not had one since August. If one is not appointed, in three days an official defender will be assigned.

The cause branched out to other people and all companies that would be linked to the maneuvers that could have contributed to the hypothesis of the cause and that is that the irregularities detected in Oyarbide's assets could respond to an illicit enrichment.

Based on the data collected on these companies, the prosecutor's office required information from various financial entities to know their economic movements, since they would be linked “with part of the assets under suspicion,” explained sources of the case to Clarín.

Heritage irregularities

The requirement to justify the assets of Oyarbide was formulated "based on the irregularities detected in its environment, specifically in relation to the economic growth of Claudio Blanco and Ariel Roperti, who are presumed to be linked to the former judge as testaferros."

For the prosecution "there are plenty of elements that prove these financial inconsistencies" and therefore the investigation "continues its course from a large accumulation of information obtained from an in-depth analysis of all the documentary records that were collected in the case ".

Claudio Blanco was a couple of the controversial former magistrate and Ariel Roperti his accountant. Investigators believe that both officiated as ex-judge's frontmen.

The numbers under suspicion

As the prosecutor could rebuild, Oyarbide's assets grew disproportionately.

In his brief, Di Lello pointed out that "the luxurious characteristics of the life of the former federal judge are contrasted with the data that at the moment were collected on his estate, which records as the only source of income the monthly salary he received for performing" as federal judge Oyarbide lives in a department of Recoleta that during the investigation period he shared with Claudio Blanco, who would have a car and an American Express credit card.

On the other hand, it was reported that the consumption in his favorite restaurant -with the special area for his exclusive attention- "and the ostentatious characteristics of his private home, allow us to share that the striking standard of living that Oyarbide led could originate in the commission of facts that constitute crimes of public action ".

There is a notorious contradiction, marked by the prosecutor, between the "austere style" that reflected Oyarbide in the registered goods and "the reflection of his lifestyle in the journalistic notes that account for the use by the named Bulgari jewelry, his lunch and dinner at the exclusive El Mirasol Restaurant, its assiduous presence in the Colmegna spa ".

Oyarbide had already been involved in a controversy for using a ring with an exclusive diamond.

The prosecutor also referred to journalistic notes that realized that in the department of the former judge, "the walls were entertained, there were pictures set in gold paper, sculptures and a grand piano, while in the bathroom would have a marble tub Carrara with his initials embedded in gold, show that austerity is not such. "