In just two minutes, which is how long the verdict lasted, the Buenos Aires Jury for the Trial of Magistrates and Officials dismissed (by majority) the San Isidro prosecutor Claudio
Scapolan (52)
accused of poor performance and serious charges of corruption.
Serious, with an air of defeat, Scapolan entered the hearing room of the provincial legislature shortly before 5:00 p.m., the time set for the sentence.
From his defendant's chair, he listened resignedly to the decision of the jurors.
These, in addition to firing him, resolved to
disqualify him from holding any position in Justice
, to bear the costs of the process and to immediately stop paying his salary, which since December had already been paid at 60 percent.
Now several instances of appeal are open for him, first before the Buenos Aires Court and then before the National Court.
But he will already do it without privileges and in an increasingly uphill panorama.
Scapolan was, for years, the strong man of the resigned attorney general Julio Novo, close to massismo.
Novo today awaits an oral trial, accused of protecting drug traffickers.
Although it was denounced for the first time almost 8 years ago, only on February 23rd - after many comings and goings and after
almost all possible Buenos Aires judges excused themselves from intervening in the case -
the Jury of Prosecution decided to set a date for the jury , which started at 9 in the morning on March 28.
The decision was almost unanimous.
Only the legislator Sofía Vannelli (Frente de Todos) voted in dissent, a reference to massismo, a sector from which the former attorney general Novo always received support.
Despite the fact that, for the moment, the accusations in the Justice against Scapolan were reduced (via the Federal Chamber of San Martín) to a firm prosecution for "falsification of a public instrument", the jury was accused of the conduct for which at the time the Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado asked that his privileges be removed to detain him.
At the jury, Scapolan was pointed out by the prosecution as the
head of a gang
made up of police officers, court officials and lawyers dedicated to extortion, the arming of operatives and the
resale of drugs seized in anti-drug proceedings
.
The attorney of the Buenos Aires Court, Julio Conte Grand, accused him of all this, based on the evidence gathered in a file that originally began in 2016 with a complaint from the deputy Elisa "Lilita" Carrió.
In other words, this verdict was reached after 8 years of paperwork.
Added to the complaint by Carrió - who slept for years - was the investigation carried out by the federal prosecutor of San Isidro Fernando Domínguez and the judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, the latter finally removed from the file by order of the Federal Chamber of San Martín.
In December of last year, the Jury for the Prosecution of Officials and Magistrates of the Province of Buenos Aires - chaired by Judge Ana María Bourimborde - decided to suspend Scapolan and start the path towards his political trial.
With witnesses of all kinds, this jury lasted just three days: it started on Tuesday, March 28, and concluded on Thursday, March 30. At first, there was talk of a list of more than fifty witness statements, but it was eventually greatly reduced.
In the hearings there were from drug traffickers who recounted how the policemen commanded by Scapolan looted them, to a "narco-repentant" federal police officer who turned around and claimed to have been pressured by judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado and prosecutor Fernando Domínguez to testify against the prosecutor of San Isidro.
Due to the latter, according to what Scapolan said in his plea, he has already filed a complaint for alleged "aggravated coercion" in the Federal Court of La Plata.
The same witness - currently in prison - was accused of false testimony by the prosecution.
At the time of the allegations, both the attorney general of Pergamino Mario Gómez (chosen for the task of prosecuting by the Court Prosecutor Julio Conte Grand) as well as Scapolan's defender, Luciano Locatelli, and the defendant himself displayed their arguments before the eleven members of the jury.
The first requested the dismissal, the second, the acquittal.
"In this trial, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, victims and repentants declared that they referred to the irregular conduct of Dr. Scapolán. In the proceedings directed by the prosecutor Scapolan, such serious crimes were committed that they concluded with the annulment
of the causes
, "started the prosecutor Gómez who recalled that in a jury both crimes and misdemeanors are grounds for dismissal.
MG
