acquittal Evangelist Pastor Roberto Tagliapiaccused of exploiting his position to recruit young addicts with offers of rehabilitation treatments through which he made them work for him, opened a rift in the Mar del Plata federal court and began a powerful intersection reflected in its decisions, a controversy with an uncertain end.
he Judge Roberto Falconemember of the Federal Oral Tribunal (TOF) No. 1 of Mar del Plata and responsible for the discussion, considered that the priest was not an exploiter, but rather a social actor compensating for the shortcomings of the State and that through his actions, far from subjecting the young people he employed to the situation of human trafficking for the purposes of labor exploitation, he was “expanding their freedom.” For this reason, and in a sharp criticism of the work of the Public Prosecution in the case, he advised them to do so “They will trample the mud” Instead of analyzing behaviors from the desktop.
Now the very harsh response came from the Public Prosecution, also in the file letter, through the appeal submitted to the Federal Criminal Court of Cassation, where it requested that he be sentenced to 14 years in prison. the Federal Prosecutor Laura Mazzafferiin charge of the Office of Economic Crimes, Human Trafficking and Other Complex Crimes in the field of investigation and litigation of complex cases of the Mar del Plata Financial Unit, and Prosecutor Marcelo ColomboThe co-head of the Office of the Prosecutor for Human Trafficking and Exploitation (PROTEX) stated categorically that, with his acquittal, Judge Falcone gave “A dangerous message to society”.
“A rhetorical device has been used, Not worthy of a judgeWho seeks to discredit this party in order to weaken the cause and its contribution A dangerous message to societyThey stressed that this crime violates all national and international standards for the prevention, prosecution and appropriate punishment of the crime of human trafficking, which, in addition to demonstrating the arbitrariness of the ruling, causes an insult to the independence and image of the Public Prosecution. Mazzafferi Colombo, in his appeal to the country’s highest criminal court.
Last October, the acquittal verdict signed by Judge Falcone was announced. In her submission, Prosecutor Mazzafferi requested the conviction of Tagliabue, who stood trial on charges of committing a crime Human trafficking for the purposes of labor exploitation within the framework of the method of reduction to slavery, which is aggravated by the quality of the perpetrator, being a minister or religious authority, by deception and threats, by the number of victims, by exploitation of their state of vulnerability, by the exploitation achieved, and by its commission in relation to a minor and a person with a disability.. He was also tried on charges of illegally practicing medicine.
According to the indictment, Tagliabue recruited at least nine people – mostly young men – “in a state of extreme vulnerability, experiencing situations of problematic consumption, lack of self-control and economic deprivation, and/or in conflict with the criminal law, to house them in a house attached to the temple that he managed in the Boyridon neighborhood, most of them, in a sham addiction rehabilitation program that had neither health professionals nor a license to operate, according to the evidence of the court case.”
Prosecutor Mazzafferi emphasized in her plea: “It has been proven that the accused, by exploiting the vulnerable situation that young people were experiencing, through deception and false promises of rehabilitation, as well as developing intimidation maneuvers, such as various forms of violence, threats and sexual harassment, affected their freedom of self-determination and, in this way, He exploited them at work and benefited from them personallyNot only economically, but also in terms of the influence it has exercised and partly continues to exercise in society.
For the Prosecutor’s Office, the trial made clear that How it works systematic It was popularized by Tagliabue thanks to his role as a priest, his spiritual discourse, and his help to his neighbor, in what he called “Coercive persuasion process”.
The first approaches – as the plaintiff reconstructed in her plea – were from a place of containment and love, and then “Increasing the relationship of social, economic and emotional dependency, becoming a relationship of exploitation, without providing or generating the tools of independence and self-determination for young people.“.
On the contrary, in making his decision, Judge Falcone ruled as follows: “The version of the facts supported by the Prosecutor is not consistent with the outcome of the evidence presented at the oral trial. On the contrary, what the evidence in question shows is that Tagliabue did not apply techniques of coercive persuasion, did not recruit or harbor – in the typical sense of the crime of human trafficking – any victim; did not act for the purpose of exploiting any person; and did not exploit or convert the labor into slavery of any person.”
For the judge, “the persons identified as victims under the indictment did not in fact have that status. The Public Prosecution should make a night tour of Mar del Plata and see hundreds of people sleeping on the streets, drugged and without access to any medical equipment. The prosecution must “tread the mud.”As (Jose) Cafferata Norris (author of the Handbook of Criminal Procedure Law) says. Moreover, the activity of religious entities in the tragedy of problematic drug use and their relationship with the state was the subject of an investigation by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet).
During the trial, there was great support for the priest from the faithful of his community, who remained in front of the headquarters of the Oral Criminal Court before each hearing and celebrated Tagliabue’s acquittal with hugs and tears.
In the appeal submitted before the cassation, the prosecution confirmed this The ruling is “arbitrary because, on the one hand, it deliberately omitted to mention and evaluate the evidence crucial to the charge to resolve the case, and, on the other hand, it distorted its meaning and evidentiary weight by distorting the testimony of specialized experts from the National Coordination for the Rescue and Support of Victims of the Crime of Human Trafficking, by misinterpreting the meaning of the wiretaps and deliberately ignoring the abundant documentary evidence.”
They stressed that “against all national and international regulations, The judge based his decision almost exclusively on the literal meaning of the testimonies of victims whose stories were supportive or grateful to the priest, while discrediting the testimonies of young people who, on the other hand, questioned and denounced the behavior shown by the accused.“, according to the news website of the Attorney General of the Nation. www.fiscales.gob.ar.