05/27/2021 9:06 AM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 05/27/2021 9:50 AM
Sergio Varisco, a former mayor of Paraná convicted of drug trafficking, died
after a 15-day hospitalization
.
The two-time mayor of the capital of Entre Ríos remained in intensive care for pneumonia that affected him after having undergone a complex neurological surgery.
The former communal chief of Cambiemos was sentenced in 2019 - in what many consider the largest cause of a federal court in Entre Ríos - to six and a half years in prison for being considered a necessary participant in the crime
of drug marketing
.
Varisco was serving house arrest.
In another case, the former official was also accused of trying to get the municipality of Paraná to make
a transfer of 1.5 million pesos
to the "Mutual Modelo", without surety insurance, in January 2016, a few days after assuming as communal chief of Paraná.
On the other hand, at the end of 2020, Varisco and his partner, Councilor Claudia Acevedo, managed to suspend for a year a trial that followed them for having a
clandestine electricity connection
in their home.
Still prosecuted, and one step away from the drug trafficking trial, Varisco
had once again run as a candidate
.
He lost, but served his term without leaving office despite being involved in a drug sale case.
“It is not a finished judicial process.
I do not have my own resources to finance drug trafficking,
I am absolutely innocent,
"he declared as soon as the judgment of the court of first instance was known.
Together with Varisco, they sentenced the former Paraná Security Secretary Griselda Bordeira to
five years in prison
.
The same sentence was for former councilman Pablo Hernández, but as a secondary participant.
And Luciana Lemos, ex-partner of the leader of the drug organization, to four years in jail.
“
I never sold or used drugs
.
I am angry for many lies, "said Varisco in his last intervention in court.
He always denied the accusation and insisted that it was "an operation" against him.
In his closing arguments, the prosecutor José Candioti had requested ten years in prison for Varisco, considering him a "co-author" of the
"financing of drug trade activities"
together with Hernández and Bordeira, for whom he requested 9-year prison sentences.
The trial brought together two files, one known as "Narcoavioneta";
and another, like "Narcomunicipality", the latter is the one that splashed Varisco.
In this context, there were a total of
26 convicted and four acquitted
.
Thirteen were considered "co-authors", eleven "participants" and two were found guilty of "conspiracy".
In addition, the prosecutor had requested that the former mayor be fined 250,000 pesos.
Varisco was accused of
financing transportation for the commercialization of cocaine
in Paraná and its surroundings, through his link with Daniel “Tavi” Celis, a pointer who has been in prison for robbery since 2016. The robbery for which Celis was convicted was not a Anything done, it would have been to collect a debt for a drug shipment.
From jail, he was accused, he continued to run the business.
“Tavi” Celis, the leader of the gang, ended up with the highest sentence in the case: he was given
thirteen years in prison
.
To his brother, Miguel, eight.
Both were considered co-perpetrators of the crime "organization of drug trafficking activities, two events in real competition" and they imposed a fine of 250,000 pesos.
For the prosecution, Varisco had made "an agreement" with Celis in September 2017 in which "
he promised to deliver 50,000 pesos a month
to finance" the organization.
The trial lasted more than a
hundred days
and had a hundred witnesses.
With information from Télam.
News in development.
LGP
Look also
Cassation confirmed the conviction for drug trafficking of the former mayor of Paraná, Sergio Varisco
Sergio Varisco, after being convicted of drug trafficking: “I am innocent;
I never used drugs "
