Former Chilean constituent Rodrigo Rojas Vade, in a file image. MARTIN BERNETTI (AFP)
Rodrigo Rojas Vade, protagonist of one of the biggest electoral frauds in Chile, has been sentenced this Monday for the crime of residual fraud in an abbreviated trial in the Seventh Guarantee Court of Santiago.
Justice has sentenced him to 61 days in prison and to pay a fine of about 850 dollars for pretending to have cancer to obtain donations with which he claimed to cover the alleged treatment.
He went on to raise more than $16,000.
However, after the 39-year-old ex-conventionist acknowledged his responsibility this morning, the judge has granted him to replace the prison sentence with one year of probation before the gendarmerie.
Rojas Vade entered and left the courts in silence.
He covered his head with a hood and wore sunglasses and a mask.
His lawyer, Tomás Ramírez, declared after hearing the sentence: "From the first moment, [Rodrigo] indicated that he was sorry, that it is something that he should not have done and, according to what he has indicated to me, it is the position that he maintains."
Thin, without eyebrows or hair on his face and head, Rojas Vade was one of the leaders of the social outbreak of October 2019 with a speech based on his supposed fight against mixed acute lymphocytic leukemia, one of the most serious cancers that exists and It attacks the blood and bone marrow.
Every Friday he went to demonstrate in the center of Santiago with a naked torso and a mask.
He was seen holding signs that read “I don't fight cancer.
I struggle to pay for chemo.
Dignified health for Chile" or with a catheter attached to the body.
He created the blog "Cancer, reality without a filter", where he portrayed how difficult it was to suffer from the disease in the South American country.
In the midst of the protests, he became a symbol of the inequalities of the health system in Chile.
As such, the former airline crew member was one of the 155 chosen to draft the constitutional proposal (rejected last September).
He used one of the 27 seats obtained by the People's List, a group of left-wing independents that stormed the constituent by surprise.
He almost won the presidency of the body, but ultimately won one of the seven vice presidencies.
Thanks to his popularity, more people contributed financially to deal with the supposed disease.
On one occasion, the scammer even organized a charity raffle for his own benefit.
The contributions of the people who wanted to help him reached 13,366,646 Chilean pesos, about 16,800 dollars.
Two months after assuming the challenge of writing the constitutional proposal, a journalistic investigation by the newspaper
La Tercera
forced him to reveal his lie and leave office at the Constitutional Convention, deeply undermining trust in the drafting body.
Rojas Vade apologized and said that he suffered from a stigmatizing disease, for the treatment of which he had needed the donated money.
Later it was learned that he suffered from syphilis, Behcet's disease and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.
The board of directors of the Constitutional Convention denounced him to the Central North Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office for facts associated with the declaration of interests in which he registered a debt of $33,000 with the bank for a "chemotherapeutic treatment for cancer."
Rojas Vade, who had no criminal record, collaborated in the case.
The Public Ministry took into account his "irreproachable previous conduct", which reduced the sentence requested by the Prosecutor's Office.
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