2023-11-03 03:15:00
Between 5 and 8 p.m. on Wednesday, November 1, Néstor Pablo Sánz spoke before prosecutors Pablo Vignaroli and Juan Manuel Narváez about his role in the scam with social plans. He contributed names, figures, datesamong other details that confirm the million-dollar maneuver and that he knows from the inside: they accuse him of being one of the five leaders of the illicit association that operated from the Ministry of Social Development of Neuquén.
Sánz, former Director of Supervision of the Ministry, is detained in preventive detention. After his extensive statement They changed his accommodation for security reasonsand it is likely that in the next few hours it will be decided to grant house arrest in a home whose location will be kept secret.
“He confirmed all the maneuvers as we described them in the charging hearings,” they told RÍO NEGRO newspaper the chief prosecutor Pablo Vignaroli and the prosecutor of the case Juan Manuel Narváez. “He positions himself as responsible, but in a less important role”they added.
This gives additional value to the accused’s confession: Sánz did not put himself “out” of the crime; She admitted to having participated and even benefited financially. But he pointed out that the bosses were others.
Concretely, He blamed former minister Abel Di Luca; to the former Provincial Coordinator Tomás Siegenthaler and the former director of Social Plans, Ricardo Soiza. The three are accused as leaders of the illicit association, the last one is the only one who is also detained.
He also reported similar maneuvers that were committed from 2015 to date. This newspaper asked if the minister of that time, Mariano Gaido, was involved: «He mentioned it, but in another role. According to his version, the one who managed everything was Santiago Morán »Vignaroli said.
Morán has just been ratified by Mayor Gaido as Secretary of Mobility and Citizen Services of the Municipality of Neuquén.
“With this statement the prosecution has the case resolved”assured a source outside the public ministry but with direct access to the file.
Initial contacts
The possibility that Sánz come forward to testify as repentant It began to be considered as soon as lawyer Gustavo Palmieri assumed his defense, who assures that in his work he has two limits: people accused of corruption and crimes against humanity.
He Wednesday October 25Palmieri had a first informal talk with the prosecutors investigating the scam, and They talked again on Monday the 30th.
There are two versions of what happened at those meetings. One indicates that prosecutors They put limits on Sánz’s statement “because they felt uncomfortable with the names I had to contribute.”
The other points out that «Sánz seemed to have a lot to say, but without proof. It was agreed that she declare what she could prove.
Tests
RÍO NEGRO Diary He asked, precisely, if the accused could prove everything he said. «This boy is like a computersaw everything, knows everything, remembers everything. “He has been in the ministry for 20 years, and everything he said is corroborated in the prosecutors’ investigation.”said a source with access to the case.
From the prosecution they said that “no evidence provided. “He made a statement that basically confirms everything we said at the arraignment hearing.”
«What he said has a lot of correlation with the evidence we have, but we are comparing it. It is a very large volume of information,” said Vignaroli and Narváez.
The defense lawyers of the other accused, at least that of Di Luca, requested authorization to participate in Sánz’s statement. but they denied it. «The accused has the right to speak free of pressure, and “We understood that the presence of other defense lawyers could condition it.”prosecutors said.
Thus, only the prosecutors, the defender, the representative of the State Prosecutor’s Office, Gustavo Kohon, and two accountants who work for the Economic Crimes Prosecutor’s Office participated.
They added that “now the declaration is available to all partiesyou can get a copy and draw your own conclusions.
The money route
Perhaps one of the most relevant contributions is linked to the money route.
As is known, the “extractors” (among them, Sánz himself) They went to ATMs of the Banco Provincia de Neuquén with the debit cards of the beneficiaries of social plans and emptied their accounts.
Every month they deposited in each savings bank up to 49,500 pesosbut the owner I only received 10,000 pesos in hand. Apparently she never found out that he was being used for embezzlement.
From the ATMs, the extractors went directly to the Social Plans office, and left the bills in a blue box, which was then uploaded to Ricardo Soiza’s office.
It is also known, from the statements of other repentants, that then political leaders arrived and left with envelopessupposedly with money.
Sánz provided more details. He said that the silver had three destinations:
• Operating expenses: they paid for vehicle rental for electoral campaigns and other expenses linked to politics.
• Payment of political leaders and journalists. The repentant appeared before the prosecutors with a list made in his own handwriting with the names. “Many agree with what we had, and we asked about others,” confirmed Vignaroli.
• Personal benefit of those involved in the maneuver. Sánz declared that Soiza took at least “3,250,000 pesos per month”while he and Marcos Ariel Osuna, former head of the Program Management department and also detained, They kept 250,000 pesos each. “This is what he says, it must be confirmed,” the prosecutors clarified.
The repentant said that all the expenses of El Faraón, the gastronomic business of Soiza, They were financed with funds from the Ministry. “The rent, salaries, bonuses, , everything was financed with money from social plans”depending on your version.
Sánz also corroborated the roles of other participants in the maneuver: the accountant auditor Julio Arteaga (who depends on the Treasury); Counter José María Gallo; Carolina Reznik (former General Director of Finance), and Juliet Oviedo (former Treasury Director).
What will the prosecution do?
Given such a novelty in the investigation, chief prosecutor Vignaroli said that “We decided to move forward with what we already have, which is the period September 2020-July 2022”.
«In a later stage we will analyze if there are elements to open a case Social Plans 2 and Social Plans 3. It is not convenient now to cover so much, because there is a risk that everything will end up being diluted,” he added.
For that reason Morán and Gaido will not be investigated in the immediate future.
As the chief prosecutor explained, Sánz did not mention Governor Omar Gutiérrez or Governor-elect Rolando Figueroa as being linked to the maneuver.. Nor to figures from the Neuquén Popular Movement, and not even to the previous Minister of Social Development, Adriana Figueroa.
Next Thursday, November 9, there will be a hearing in which The prosecution will request the extension of preventive detention from Soiza and Osuna. Regarding Sánz, the possibility of modifying the precautionary measure is analyzed and grant him house arrest.
“He is not hindering the investigation but quite the opposite,” said a source close to the accused.
Can you take advantage of the figure of the repentant?
From his statement before the prosecution, Sánz will most likely reap a quick dividend: he will leave the cell in which he has been since last July 10. He will go on to serve house arrest, in a home whose location will be kept confidential for security reasons.
However, he will not be separated from the cause: will continue as accused. So that some of the benefits that the law provides for those who repent can be reached will have to go through the oral trial in which it must be verified that their contribution consisted of “accurate, verifiable and credible information or data”.
Only in that case can you receive a lesser sentence.
The Penal Code says in its article 41 ter that “the criminal scales may be reduced to those of the attempt regarding the participants or authors” of a catalog of crimes, among which is that of illicit association.
The condition is that “during the substantiation of the process of which they are part, they provide accurate information or data, verifiable and credible.
Data becomes verifiable and credible in a trial with a conviction.
«For the origin of this benefit it will be necessary that the data or information provided contribute to (…) find out “the destination of the instruments, goods, effects, products or profits of the crime”. These parameters could frame Sánz’s contribution.
In the Social Plans case there are three women and a man who They also appear as repentant, because they provided relevant information. Their role in the organization is very minor, and in their case an opportunity criterion could benefit them: The prosecution is considering withdrawing the accusation so that they can appear at trial as witnesses, and not as defendants..
The oral trial
November 29 will mark one year since the first charges were filed by the prosecution.
The intention of Vignaroli and Narváez is to ask, the same daythat the cause be elevated to oral trial.
So far there are 31 accusedand the accusation for the five ringleaders (Di Luca, Soiza, Siegenthaler, Sánz and Osuna) is “illicit associationin character bossesin real contest with fraud to the public administration and special fraud for the unauthorized use of a debit card, 9,303 acts in real competition, as co-authors.”
The other 26 are accused of to integrate the illicit association.
Due to the planned penal scale, The case will not go to trial by jury.but before a court with three technical judges.
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