A court confirmed this week the prosecution of Cristina Kirchner's partner, Lázaro Báez (67 years old) for the crime of aggravated evasion, which complicated his procedural situation and he now
runs the risk of spending the rest of his life in house arrest if he continues to add sentences.
.
Báez was sentenced
to 10 years in prison in the Money Route K case and 6 years
in the Roads case (although the prosecutor this week asked Cassación to double the sentence).
Báez has been detained since April 5, 2016 and has been under house arrest since 2021.
Unlike other members of the Kirchner entourage, Báez never broke the pact of silence and did not accept to be repentant (accused collaborator).
In the case of Operativo Puf there is a conversation in which it is said that the “boss” (it would be Cristina Kirchner) would give her a benefit if she keeps her mouth shut.
When the Road Traffic sentence is final (be it 6, 10 or another number), the judge of the last sentence must make
“a unification and composition”
of sentences, which is not an arithmetic sum.
If there were 6 plus 10, it could be 15 years in prison, a judicial source explained to
Clarín
.
The increase in sentences is key,
both for conditional release (given two-thirds of the sentence completed) or for temporary releases
(halfway through the sentence if the person has good behavior).
Báez's problem is that in addition to Money Route K and Roads, he has other cases underway that paint a dark judicial future for him and two Comodoro Py sources are betting on the possibility that he will end his life under house arrest.
When he turns 70 in three years, he will have that benefit.
For now, a court
refused
this week to give the owner of Austral Construcciones conditional release despite the fact that his lawyers requested the application of the benefit of two-thirds of the sentence served.
TOF 4 denied it because it has a pending oral trial for the purchase of the “El Entrevero” field in Uruguay.
But he also has
another one for the use of trout invoices in the Chaco and now a fourth one underway for aggravated tax evasion.
This last crime has a penalty of between
three years and six months to nine years in prison.
This week the judges of the Federal Oral Court 4 (TOF4) refused to grant him the benefit because another criminal process is in the final stage for alleged money laundering in sales maneuvers of the
"El Entrevero" field, in Uruguay, for 14 million dollars.
Báez has been detained since
April 5, 2016, when he was arrested by Judge Sebastián Casanello
in the Money Route K case and since 2021 he has been under house arrest.
He is detained in a house in Greater Buenos Aires, whose address is kept secret, and now he asked to go to a home in Santa Cruz.
Judges Néstor Costabel and Jorge Gorini refused to release him because a verdict is pending in the El Entrevero camp case,
whose oral trial is scheduled to begin final arguments in mid-March.
"The criminal expectation that the defendant has, who is accused of being a co-author of the crime of money laundering, aggravated by habitually carrying out acts and as a member of
a gang
formed for the continued commission of acts of this nature, must be kept to the criminal scale," concluded the Court in relation to this last case
The other bad news for Báez was the decision of the Economic Criminal Chamber made up of Roberto Hornos and Carolina Robiglio to confirm his prosecution in a case for the alleged aggravated evasion of the Income Tax of Austral Construcciones using apocryphal invoices from the so-called
Penta and Calvento Group
.
Now the case will go to an oral court and if Báez is found guilty he could suffer a sentence ranging from three years and six months to nine years in prison.
That eventual sentence, like others, will be added to the sentence of 10 more that he has in the Money Route K and the 6-year sentence in the Roads case.
For evasion, Báez was also prosecuted by López Biscayart in 2018, a measure confirmed by the court, in a case for tax evasion of more than 80 million pesos from Grupo Austral.
The situation became more complicated this week for the friend and partner of former president Néstor Kirchner because
the oral trial of the Adelmo Biancalani successor case began in Chaco, also for tax evasion.
To make matters worse, the Court this week declared
the jurisdiction of the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 29
and not of a federal court in Comodoro Py to continue investigating a complaint filed by Lázaro Baez's ex-wife, Norma Calismonte, against the lawyer of her ex-husband Elisabeth Gasaro.
Calismonte accused lawyer
Gasaro of keeping money that belonged to her after the dissolution of the marital partnership
that she maintained with Baez until November 2015.
He said that Gasaro had been Báez's attorney since 2017 and that she was the one who paid him the agreed support.
He added that for a long time the lawyer gave him money
irregularly and discontinuously
and that he never knew where the funds came from and that he had suspicions that money had been diverted
since the lawyer and her brother would have expanded their assets and established companies.
.
Now the Court also ordered
to investigate whether that money also came from funds stolen from the State.