The former participant of Big Brother, Marcelo Corazza, awaits the resolution of the Court of Appeals: next week they will define if he returns to prison or if they uphold the decision of Judge Javier Sánchez Sarmiento to prosecute him without preventive detention only for corruption of a minor of 13 years and obscene exhibitions. It also remains to be seen if they maintain the lack of merit in the case investigating their participation in the illicit association for which three other men have already been prosecuted and arrested.
The prosecution appealed to the decision of Judge Sánchez Sarmiento and this week the results of the expertise in the cell phone of the Telefé producer again complicated his situation.
It is that two months after the arrest of Corazza, the computer experts presented a report made on the cell phone of the winner of the first broadcast of the reality Big Brother.
Photos and videos with sexual content, as well as chats with other alleged victims were the main elements found on the device. Thus, Patricio Lugones, of the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office No. 26, will deepen this line of investigation to identify the people involved, determine if they were children or adolescents at the time of the conversations and if there was an exchange of money to access that material.
If so, their situation would be complicated in the face of the decision of the superior court that has access to the results of this expertise and, as confirmed to Clarín, they should "take it into account when resolving."
Lugones will expand the investigation and it remains to be seen if, after the analysis of the new evidence, he summons him to expand his investigative statement and notify him of the accusation for other facts.
Corazza had told a mobile of the Intruders program, installed at the door of his house, that "there is no chance" of him returning to prison. On the advice of his lawyers, he decided not to speak about the case, although his statements are nothing more than an expression of desire and it will depend on the judges of the Court of Appeals what will happen to him. Also what decision they make when evaluating the new evidence.
The expertise was incorporated into the file on May 18 and the judges should decide after the long weekend: they are expected to issue a decision next week.
Judicial sources consulted by Clarín confirmed that the investigation into these two possible new victims will be carried out within the framework of the same case for corruption of minors under thirteen years of age and obscene exhibitions and illicit association.
Another important point to be resolved by the Chamber is the competence of the National Justice in the case because after Judge Sánchez Sarmiento rejected the request of Corazza's defense to declare the case prescribed, they asked that it be referred to the Federal Justice.
The cause
On March 22, Corazza was arrested along with Francisco Angelotti (46), Andrés Charpenet (53) and Ignacio Mermet (53) accused of being part of a network that recruited children and adolescents between 10 and 18 years old and then manipulated, abused and forced to have sex with other adults in exchange for monetary remuneration.
Angelotti was placed as the leader of the gang and Charpenet and Mermet would participate in the manipulation and extortion of the boys. Travel, clothes, gifts and money would be some of the elements offered to the boys to convince them to submit to abuse. Those who were also threatened to keep silent.
Francisco Rolando Angelotti Notarbartolo, syndicated as the leader of the band. Photo Archive
Angelotti transported the children from Misiones, where he lives, to Buenos Aires to subject them to the paedophile ring.
One of the victims dared to denounce after seeing Corazza in a television program linked to the last edition of Big Brother. It was in October 2022 when he approached the Attorney General's Office for Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Protex) and recounted the abuses he was subjected to between 1999 and 2002 when he was between 11 and 13 years old. He also pointed to other children who were co-opted by the same gang.
The indictment refers to eight boys, although they could only identify three, of whom two testified. Three other victims were identified but could not determine their identities.
Francisco Rolando Angelotti Notarbartolo is being prosecuted with preventive detention for the crimes of illicit association, trafficking in persons aggravated by the number of victims, perpetrated against minors under 18 years of age and taking advantage of their situation of vulnerability, continued sexual abuse with seriously outrageous carnal access, perpetrated against minors under 13 years of age, promotion of prostitution of minors under 18 years of age, child pornography and corruption of children under 13 years of age, all of them in real competition with each other, that is, they occurred at the same time.
Raul Ignacio Mermet, alias "Nacho," owns a lawn mower company and is a friend of Angelotti's school. He was prosecuted for the same crime as Angelotti, except for possession of registered child abuse (popularly known as child pornography).
Charpenet is also considered part of the illicit association that investigates the Justice, as a co-author of the same crimes but against minors under 18 years of age.
The complaint against Corazza
Corazza was charged with a single act, although they are investigating whether there was a second abuse.
According to the indictment accessed by Clarín, a young man denounced: "One day (after 2001), the accused (Rolando) Angelotti Notarbartolo was with victim 1 and 3 (NdR: the identity of the complainants has been preserved). He told the first one that he had someone who wanted to meet him." That child would have refused the meeting but his abuser ended up "convincing" him to attend.
By then, the abuse had developed in a way that the boy thought he had "fallen in love." "He generated a bond of submission in which his decision-making capacity was annulled because today, being an older person, he understands that he would never have been attracted to him," Sánchez Sarmiento described.
Marcelo Corazza in 2001, after winning Big Brother. Photo Eugenio Peralta / File
It was in that context that he managed to take him and the person identified as victim 3, a classmate of the first, to meet a person.
Angelotti drove them to Miserere Square, where he parked next to another vehicle. On the other side, the brand new winner of the first edition of Big Brother (in 2001) opened the window, in one of its most popular moments.
"Victim 1 was attracted to the situation as he had recently won the reality show. This led him to switch cars," they said. What follows is the account of an abusive situation. A car in between, on the Costanera Sur, Angelotti was waiting for him with another of the boys knowing what was happening inside that car.
In addition, after the investigative statement, the victims would have placed Corazza in a "parking lot" where a group of adults "surrounded" the two boys and where they were subjected in what they described as a "group sex party", although Sánchez Sarmiento indicated that he must delve into the testimonies about this event to investigate Corazza again also for that fact.
One of the key points of the victim's testimony is that he accurately described the model and color of the car in which Corazza committed the abuse. Then, they were able to verify it with the registration of the vehicle: he had the blue Citroën in that year, the same one that the victim detailed.
ACE
See also
