Luis Alonso “N”, former santar at Puerto Vallarta municipal police who abused a 10-year-old girl inside his car, will not be prosecuted for child corruption as a judge determined that she felt no pleasure and that the defendant is already linked to prosecution for the crime of child sexual abuse.
On August 14, Judge Jorge Luis Solís Aranda rejected Luis Alonso’s link to the trial for the crime of corruption of minors, which the Penal Code defines as “the initiation or practice of sexual activity”, with punishment of four to seven years in prison when the aggressor takes care of some situation such as having power or being a public official.
“I was surprised, it was very clear to me that it would be difficult for the judge to link to process. What I never expected was the arguments he gave, sexist, sexist, imposing the burden on the victim, on the girl, not on the aggressor. I hoped that she would legally base this refusal, not in a sexist, prejudiced, biased way as she did,” the coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (Cladem) in Vallarta, Sandra Quiñones, said in an interview with Animal Político.
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Luis Alonso was surprised on Sunday, July 26 with a inside his car. He was standing by the co-pilot’s door and, when policemen doing surveillance in the area approached, he became nervous and tried to cover the inside of the vehicle. Inside was the little one and, as she stated afterwards, the man had allegedly already been touching her body.
A week later, on August 3, the first hearing was held to link him to trial and it was when the legal stumbles that have unleashed a wave of outrage in this case began.
Public Prosecutor’s Office Juan Alberto López Amaral asked for the allegation only for a crime, child sexual abuse, and asked for the aggravation that the girl is under the age of 12. But the Jalisco Penal Code has a contradiction: aggravating to this crime are stipulated in Article 142-N, where it says that the penalty will be increased by one third if the victim is less than that age. The problem is that Article 142-L itself, which regulates sexual abuse, already has a different penalty depending on age, one to four years in prison if the victim is between 12 and 17 years old, and three to six years in prison if he is under 12.
So because of this inconsistency in the law, Judge Solís Aranda decided that the aggravating compound was not applicable. Without this condition and with a possible penalty that averages less than five years, the accused has the right to request the conditional suspension of the proceedings, so that he may be freed with precautionary measures such as surveillance, home security, a commitment not to approach his victim or receive psychological treatment, as determined.
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A hearing was scheduled last week for the defense attorney to request this suspension, and although he ultimately did not, the possibility for him to try at any time is open.
The Prosecutor’s Office was committed to getting a second link to prosecution, now for the crime of corruption of minors. At a press conference, prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solís said it hadn’t been done at the first hearing because they were getting more test data.
“This second allegation required more detailed experts, which was why at the time of the release it was decided to secure a first linkage and now we are going for a second one,” he said last Monday, with the new hearing scheduled for Friday.
Over the course of the week, another independent expertise, presented by the Cladem, was added to Quiñones. It was an expert in forensic victimology, which goes into detail not only in the affectation of the victim, but in the family, the environment and even the prosecution’s own investigation folder.
However, on Friday, 14 August, the second link to prosecution for the crime of corruption of minors was rejected.
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Most worryingly, she considered the coordinator of the NGO, is that she is a relatively new judge of the Justice Center for Women. In other words, all the cases you receive are violence against girls and women.
“The judge does not know what the principle of the child’s best interests implies, and does not know what it means to judge with a gender perspective. Not only is she a minor, she’s a girl, so the protocol forces that in this situation of double vulnerabilityand should use both the protocol that protects the best interests of the child and the gender perspective,” he lamented. “We are concerned because then we know that the rest of the trials he has are going to continue with the same tonic, re-viltimizing girls or women, denying access to justice, freeing assailants.”
After the judge’s decision became known, the Prosecutor’s Office itself reported in a statement that it will appeal on the grounds that both the offence of child sexual abuse and the offence of child sexual abuse are applicable and that the decision violates the rights of the 10-year-old girl.
? #Boletín It will appeal Prosecutor’s Office of Jalisco decision of judge not to bind to trial former municipal official in Puerto Vallarta for the crime of corruption of minors pic.twitter.com/rObX67puo1
— Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Jalisco (@FiscaliaJal) August 15, 2020
“They never act alone”
Cladem and other activist groups are not left alone in the discussion of whether the first indictment goes with or without aggravation and the second that was rejected: they formally requested with a letter that the case be investigated much more thoroughly.
“In these investigations that we also do in parallel we determine that the person who performed these acts against the girl is a predator and already has, or already had very established, his pattern, his route, his area,” Quiñones said. He even had an age range to pick his victims.
Although the identity of the girl and her family has been kept completely confidential, the activist commented that the now-former official did not know her before, but was allegedly “hunting” her because she was moving in the area where he was looking for her victims.
“And we are concerned that Vallarta is a destination for sex tourism, and child sex tourism, here is a part of a network of prostitution and child pornography. And that the defendant has been the head of human resources of the Directorate of Citizen Security alarms us very much, because it is a behavior that we know do not act alone, both for consumption and protection. It is clear to us that there is much more behind this, much more,” he stressed.
One of the investigations they are asking is for information to be crossed between units and places where he has worked to find out if there was a history of complaints or complaints against him, but so far they have had no answer.
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“I repeat: they do not work alone. So who else could be? Well, let’s hope the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the City Council start doing that part and let us know and inform the community who else do we have to take care of, or how many more cases are out there that were given to them so as not to go further? Because it’s not just some predator, he was a predator who worked in Citizen Security of the City Council and that implies that he had access to the C5 cameras, sensitive information of assaulted girls, of routes, of situations that could put many more minors at risk, and to be able to make it clear that there has to be a whole network of complicity,” he warned.
Although the Prosecutor’s Office has not advanced if it intends to make further accusations, a statement on 8 August stated that it was seeking evidence of the defendant’s alleged responsibility for “other crimes” and has insisted that he is working to strengthen the case.
Faced with the doubts and legal complications generated by the actions of the authorities for this crime, a demonstration is convened this Sunday at 5 pm in Puerto Vallarta with the slogans #LasNiñasNoSeTocan and #NoEsPlacerEsViolencia.
#LasNiñasNoSeTocan’s’LasNiñasNoSeViolan’LasNiñasNoSeMatan’NoEsPlacerEsViolencia-VallartaSemáforoRojoHoy we mobilized in Puerto Vallarta. No more impunity and Machista and Patriarchal Justice.
Posted by Cladem Jalisco Mexico on Sunday, August 16, 2020
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