Judges Daniel Petrone and Diego Barroetaveña were instrumental in the decision ordering the reopening of the Hotesur and Los Sauces cases. These are the two Kirchner family companies that are being investigated for money laundering, in relation to which two judges of the Federal Mouth Court 5 (TOF 5) dismissed all defendants at the end of 2021.
This decision was overturned this Monday by the highest criminal court except for Florencia Kirchner, who will not stand trial: Her age was a decisive factor. The waiters also took his brother’s role and family dynamics into account.
At the hearing of these files, the public prosecutor’s office argued that the Kirchner family’s hotel company, Hotesur, was not at full capacity and had serious financing problems, and that the real estate company Los Sauces, which had no headquarters, only had commercial and rental properties on the land, who have been part of it since 2009, are companies that “never really pursued commercial purposes, but rather only be a cover for money laundering maneuvers“.
These two files uniform Ueron because in both cases the same maneuver was examined, because additionally They have 16 defendants in common It also investigated an alleged illegal organization formed between 2008 and 2015 to launder 130 million pesos.
When judges Daniel Obligado and Adrián Grünberg dismissed everyone involved in the money laundering operations, it was prosecutor Diego Velasco who appealed against this criterion. Before the federal cassation, this claim was supported by his colleague Mario Villar, which allowed the judges to consider the request to hold the trial.
After several months, after the deadlines expired and speculation arose about the situation of the former judge Ana María Figueroa, The cassation decided that the trial should take place. That means: Cristina Kirchner has to sit in the dock again in a corruption case.
The only person brought to trial for money laundering was Florencia Kirchner. There was less reproach against her than against her brother, who was identified as the organizer of the illegal organization dedicated to carrying out the money laundering operations. During the investigation and trial, Cristina Kirchner’s daughter was assigned a subordinate role Shareholder and managing director of the two companies.
The judges Petrone and Barroetaveña confirmed the proposal of the lawyer Carlos Beraldi, who had pointed out that when the companies Hotesur and Los Sauces were founded Florencia Kirchner was a minor. According to the investigation, the formation of the companies determines the emergence of the money laundering operations that remain under the microscope.
The chambermaids explained that at this founding moment of the maneuver The vice president’s daughter was only twelve years old (in the case of Los Sauces he was nine years old).
However, during the investigation, the period in which she joined the two companies was identified as director in the case of real estate such as Manager and sole employee.
Faced with this situation, Judge Petrone cited the argument of Carlos Beraldi – the lawyer for the Kirchner family – who claimed that “the hypothetical attribution of events or maneuvers that occurred to Florencia Kirchner.” when “he was not yet 18 years old.”
In this way, the judge further stated that “particularly taking into account the position that Florencia Kirchner occupies within the prosecution hypothesis, her particular situation must be analyzed” in order to decide whether she should face the oral hearing or not.
The indictment in the case states that it “confirmed the existence and functioning of an illegal association of a stable and permanent nature, created on the basis of an agreement of will between the former presidents of the nation, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner, the former public.” Officials of various agencies, state officials and other people they trust, based on a division of defined and strategic roles within and outside the administrative structure of the state and maintained uninterrupted at least from May 8, 2003 to December 14, 2016, intended to commit multiple crimes to illegitimately and intentionally steal and confiscate public funds from millionaires.”
As the chambermaids focused on the time frame of the maneuvers being examined, they delineated that “specifically, Florencia Kirchner, born July 6, 1990was twelve years old at the time the organization in question was founded and She would have been accepted into the club after the death of her parent on October 27, 2010.“.
It was added that, according to the accusatory hypothesis, this association would have had at the head of this association “his parents, who successively held the presidency of the nation during the period included in the theory of the prosecution’s case, and would have been organized by Máximo Kirchner, among others“, older brother of Florencia Kirchner, also connected to politics within the governing party.
Based on these arguments, it was said that the allegation that Cristina Kirchner’s daughter was part of the illegal association suggested that this had happened when she was “a child and at the time of her entry – after the death of her father – The companies in question assigned to this organization were already consolidated“, and it was noted that those responsible for carrying out these operations “his mother and older brother play the main roles in a context in which he could not be indifferent to the weight of family authority.”
In this framework, the judges understood that “it cannot be ignored, in addition to his young age; that his lack of connection to the exercise of public office and his previous training without any connection to business activities are undisputed, there are also circumstances the bonds of affection and trust are at stake all obvious objective data of his life story, it seems in a certain way, in short, the Conditioning that the environment meant for his personal autonomy where he lived his relationship life.”
For this reason, it was expressed that the participation attributed to Cristina Kirchner’s daughter “would have meant resistance to her integration into the corporate structure under investigation after the death of her father – and thus This is enough to refute the normative accusation That’s how it was phrased.”
With regard to her role in the family business, the judges assumed that Florencia Kirchner “was extremely limited and therefore He had no real authority over his actions. and development in the family business, since their role would always have been defined as a hypothesis by other people beyond that They had an asymmetrical relationship with her. since it was partly his parents and his older brother that in itself gave them a position of authority.”
When they finalized their decision, Judges Petrone and Barroetaveña understood that based on all these facts It is impossible to maintain the criminal liability attributed to the former president’s daughter and for that reason his dismissal stands.
