The Eighth Section of the Provincial Court of Valencia has set at 908,950 dollars (about 834,000 euros) one million dollars the compensation that a hotel in the capital of Turia will have to pay to the singer Daddy Yankee for the theft of his jewelry, which occurred in August 2018. The Puerto Rican reggaeton star announced last December that he was putting an end to his artistic career: “A story is over and a new story is going to begin, a new beginning,” that of living his life for Christ.
Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez is 49 years old and is known worldwide as
Daddy Yankee.
The events occurred during the singer's performance at the Latin Fest Festival in the town of Gandia, about 69 kilometers from Valencia.
The artistic representative hired the services of a hotel in Valencia, where the entire team stayed.
The sentence reflects that Daddy Yankee and his wife stayed in a room and that the singer, "as part of his public and artistic image, travels with a significant amount of jewelry that complements his appearance during concerts, which he keeps in the box." strong that the hotel makes available to guests.”
Specifically, the interpreter arrived at the accommodation with two watches, three chains, a cross, four bracelets, three rings and a pair of diamond earrings.
In addition, his brother-in-law also stayed in another room on the same floor, with a 14-karat gold cord weighing 401.1 grams.
On August 6, after five in the morning, a stranger appeared at the hotel reception and asked the person at the reception for a duplicate of the key cards for the rooms occupied by the plaintiffs, whose duplicates were given to him. .
Presumably, he posed as a member of the artist's team.
Taking advantage of the absence of the artistic team, a person entered the rooms and, in addition, asked the hotel's technical service to go up and open the safe, after which the individual stole all the jewelry that was inside.
The hotel's internal circuit cameras recorded how a member of the gang of thieves entered Yankee's suite with the key that the hotel had previously provided them and ran into the wife of the man considered one of the kings of reggaeton inside
.
He pretended to be a maintenance worker, apologized for coming in and left.
Later, when the couple had left the hotel escorted by their bodyguards, another individual entered the room, picked up the phone and called the front desk for help because he was having trouble opening the safe.
A hotel employee went up, opened the box and left, leaving the thief with the jewelry behind him.
The judicial body thus upholds the appeal presented by the artist's legal representation, exercised by lawyer Miguel Ángel Sampedro, against a previous resolution that exempted the hotel from paying for the event.
Now, in a ruling dated January 9 - reported by the newspaper
Levante
- the Court partially revokes that acquittal and decrees compensation of $908,950, which the hotel company must pay with its legal interests.
The appealed ruling, despite considering that the defendant had actively collaborated in the robbery by providing keys to two rooms without carrying out any verification and proceeding to open the safe, initially rejected Daddy Yankee's claim based on the fact that it was not proven the pre-existence of what was stolen in the hotel.
However, the judges of the Court allude to articles 1783 and 1784 of the Civil Code, which provide that “the effects brought by travelers into inns and inns are also considered a necessary deposit” and that “the innkeepers or innkeepers are liable for of them as such depositaries, provided that knowledge had been given to them.”
The Court reflects on how the wording of this rule, which refers to 'fondistas' and 'innkeepers', is “nineteenth-century” and “gives an idea of the now obsolete reality that said article came to regulate.”
“And there is no doubt that in these times the hospitality industry is no longer represented by inns or inns, there is a very developed hospitality industry, with a wide range of establishments, and that serve very varied needs, and not only offering food and bed” , the resolution states.
Valuable belongings
“In the case we examined, the actors stayed in a modern four-star hotel, in which the rooms in which they stayed were equipped with a specific security measure for the clients' valuable belongings and belongings: the safe. installed in it, which is a theft or loss prevention device;
"The fact that clients put their jewelry or valuable objects in the safe, instead of leaving them on a table or in any other way, already assumes that the client abides by the security measure that the hotel offers."
Furthermore, the magistrates "cannot ignore the
modus operandi
followed by the thief, who would not have been able to commit the theft if he had not had the invaluable although ignored collaboration of the defendant, since his staff provided a copy of the keys to the two rooms and opened a safe without requiring reliable identification from the person making those requests.”
Therefore, “since the robbery or theft of what was deposited in the safe of the room” occupied by Daddy Yankee and his wife was unquestioned, the Court declares the hotel's responsibility and orders to pay $908,950.
Now, he warns that the case of the brother-in-law's jewelry is "different", since, according to the police report, he told the police that he left it inside a backpack, on the floor of the room next to the bed. , a gold cord valued between $10,000 and $42,000, and when he went to look for it it was not there.
In this regard, the magistrates consider in the sentence, against which there is an appeal, that the guest “did not observe the security measure offered by the establishment, nor did he take the minimum care that would have led him to hide the backpack with that contained in some safer place in the room”, so they dismiss your claim.