New "Chocolate" case: the defense of the senator denounced for fraud against the public administration

The Buenos Aires senator from Together for Change for the Costa Party Flavia Delmonte made a defense this Thursday after being accused of the crime of

"defraud against the public administration"

, in another case similar to that of "Chocolate" Rigau.

Delmonte was elected senator in 2017 and re-elected in 2021, and according to the accusation,

she registered employees ("gnocchi")

in the Senate and kept a large part of what these people received as salary.

The maneuver, with half a dozen cases proven in court, was carried out by Delmonte together with his advisor

Kevin Alan Razimoff

and the employee of the Buenos Aires Chamber of Deputies

Gonzalo Javier Torrijo.

After the case became known and Justice requested the senator's removal from office, Delmonte published his defense on social networks to explain

"inaccuracies and lies."

He maintained that the facts were presented to the Prosecutor's Office in 2021 by a former collaborator (sister of her ex-husband) in the context of her divorce and in search of her media condemnation.

" Personal conflicts are

mistakenly used by a third person

and criminally prosecuted, distorting data, dates, circumstances of time, manner and place, as well as hiding a friendship relationship of more than 25 years," said the senator.

My defense against the media complaint that requests my removal as Provincial Senator.

👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/B94mr6ivlJ

— Flavia Delmonte (@DelmonteFlavia) March 7, 2024

In addition, he highlighted that "the people mentioned to give statements

are honest and good people."

"Sadly we see how they are mentioned and condemned in the media with total impunity," remarked Delmonte, who also regretted "the hateful comparisons with other cases," referring to the case of "

Chocolate" Rigau.

The senator stressed that "there is no crime" and that she will clarify it in court, where she will initiate the corresponding actions against the people who are slandering and insulting her.

"My personal and political prestige is backed by more than 30 years of impeccable and committed militancy that the residents of the La Costa Party and the Fifth Electoral Section are witnesses of. However, I am convinced that justice will be done," concluded the post.

Provincial senator Flavia Delmonte, accused of fraud against the public administration.

The details of the new "Chocolate" case

The

prosecutor in the case, Mario Rafael Pérez, from the UFIJ 4 of Dolores

, specialized in Crimes of Corruption of Officials, maintained that "without being able to specify the exact date, but between the months of February 2019 and at least until December 2020" , provincial senator Flavia Delmonte, jointly and coordinated with Razimoff and Torrijo Fuertes, "

deployed maneuvers aimed at harming the Provincial Public Administration,

consisting of incorporating as administrative employees into the Provincial Senate people who were not fulfilling their functions."

One of these alleged Senate employees,

Tamara Yanina Arce

, was the one who made the complaint in mid-2021. Then, when investigating the accounts, the prosecutor detected five other cases.

Among them there is a senior master builder from Mar del Tuyú, a merchant from Pinamar, a neighbor from Punta Lara, a lawyer from Mar de Ajó and another legislator, in this case, a councilor from Mar del Plata: she is Marianela Romero, president of the UCR block.

The five were summoned to give an "informative" statement.

These people, Pérez accuses, "were designated in exchange for resigning part of their assets in favor of the last two mentioned, making or allowing money transfers to be made in favor of those, who in this way obtained an undue financial benefit, with detriment to the coffers of the Public Administration of the Province of Buenos Aires".

With the evidence collected by the prosecution, the Villa Gesell Guarantees Judge, David Mancinelli, who substitutes Judge Diego Olivera Zapiola, of the Dolores Guarantees Court 4, endorsed the investigation and formally requested the removal of Senator Delmonte from the Chamber. of Senators of the Buenos Aires Legislature.

As Yanina Arce's lawyer, Dr. Rodrigo Bonzo, explained to

Clarín

, "it is proven that it was operated from the IP of the terminals of the senator and her advisor Razimoff, there is a lot of evidence in the file, for example of which accounts and which The money was transferred, what they paid with that money and every time they bought the quota of two hundred dollars in the name of gnocchi."