Another firm sentence for La Manada.The Supreme Court has rejected the appeals filed by the defense of the four members of La Manada -Jose Angel Prenda, Jesus Escudero Dominguez, Alfonso Jesus Cabezuelo and Antonio Manuel Guerrero- who were sentenced to sentences ranging between two years and ten. months in jail after four years and six months in prison. Angel Boza was not accused of Pozoblanco’s abuses.
As sources from the Supreme Court have confirmed to this newspaper, the Criminal Chamber of the High Court issued an order on June 24, which has not transpired until this Monday, in which the appeals filed against the sentence for abuses were inadmissible. of Pozoblanco, after the Court of Cordobaraise in another sentence issued in November 2020 from 13,150 to 25,000 euros the compensation to be paid by the four young Sevillians who were tried in Cordoba in November 2019 for sexually abusing a young woman in the town of Pozoblanco in May 2016 and recording the facts with a mobile phone owned by one of them.
The defense of La Manada argued before the Supreme Court that the video evidence obtained by the Foral Police should be considered “illicit evidence”,what should determine its nullity and all that derived from it. Thus, he maintained that they voluntarily agreed to the contribution of their terminals in the course of the investigation proceedings followed by an alleged sexual assault that occurred on July 7, 2016 in Pamplona. Access that was allowed exculpatory and with the sole purpose of clarifying these facts and not of others different from those for which the investigation was initiated. The defense continued that the search carried out by the agents and that resulted in the appearance of a video recorded on April 30, 2016 (months before the events under investigation) are the result of a prospective investigation and, as such, prohibited; not being able to speak in any case of a casual finding.
However, the magistrates of the Supreme recall that the Court considered the legality of the evidence, “referring to a consent given by each and every one of the accused, duly assisted by a lawyer; consent that was not limited by any of them to certain files “, so “it is not possible to speak of the existence of a merely prospective investigation , but rather in light of the chance finding that occurs in the context of the investigation of the main cause”, in accordance with the doctrine of the Supreme Court in this sense.
The defense also questioned the conviction of Antonio Manuel, Jesus Escudero and Alfonso Manuel as perpetrators of a crime against privacy, considering that there was no prior concert for the commission of the crime. In this regard, I allege that in the second instance said claim has not been analyzed, and also that Article 197 of the Penal Code had been improperly applied to the aforementioned appellants since there is no acceptance or prior agreement with the action carried out by the accused Jose Angel Prenda.
The magistrates of the Supreme Court also reject these grounds for appeal, since the defense raises “a question of an evidentiary nature, which is formulated outside the legally established appeal channel and which, moreover, was expressly resolved in the appeal judgment when resolving the claim of the private and popular accusation so that all the defendants were convicted for the dissemination of the images. Specifically, the appellate body declared that there were objective data of the joint participation of the appellants in the crime against privacy, since all they pose and collaborate in the recording”.
The Supreme adds thatIt is also a “question contrary to the facts declared proven, in which it is stated that while they were carrying out the touching, the accused Jose Antonio Prenda made the recording of said acts, with the prior agreement and agreement of all the other , making the recording with Antonio Manuel Guerrero’s mobile phone, a recording that was made while the victim was unconscious,” he asserts.
Finally, it rejects the resource of the association Clara Campoamor, which considered that a series of aggravating factors should have been applied when increasing the sentences, since the defendants made sure to use sufficient means so that the victim could not defend herself, taking advantage of the circumstances, with abuse of trust and even benefiting of the condition of civil guard of one of them. The court rejects it because some of the aggravating factors -such as abuse of trust or taking advantage of public office- were not even discussed in the appeal sentence and the rest were “implicitly resolved” by the Court of Cordoba.
The judgment of the Court of Cordoba dismissed the appealsfiled by the defense attorney for the defendants and the attorney for the popular prosecution, which is exercised by the Clara Campoamor Association, at the same time that I partially upheld the appeal of the private prosecution, which represents the young victim.
Specifically, the Court of Cordoba set the compensation for moral damages to the victim at the aforementioned 25,000 euros, of which each of the four defendants will respond jointly and severally by 25% up to 20,000 euros, while the defendant Jose Angel Prenda will have to face 5,000 euros until reaching 25,000 euros.
On the other hand, the ruling confirmed “in all its other pronouncements” the sentence of the Criminal Court number 1 of Cordoba, which sentenced three of the four defendants to two years and ten months in prison and sentenced the fourth to four years and six months in prison, considering it proven that he was the one who spread the recorded images through two WhatsApp groups of which both the defendants and third parties unrelated to the events were part of.
The most serious sentence for these events was that imposed on Jose Angel Prenda, because he was the one who spread the recorded images through two WhatsApp groups.This defendant recently apologized to the family of the victim of the 2016 Sanfermines, after being denied two prison release permits despite having already served a quarter of that first 15-year prison sentence.
The ruling considers it proven that the four accused went to the Torrecampo fair in the early hours of May 1, 2016, coinciding with the victim in a booth, who when the booth closed decided to return home in the company of these four young people and in At one point he fell into a state of “unconsciousness”, without the cause having been proven.
The judge says that “taking advantage of this situation of unconsciousness”,la Manada, with a libidinous spirit, began to perform various sexual touches on him, which were recorded by Jose Angel Prenda and spread by him in two WhatsApp groups.
The sentence also states that when they arrived in Pozoblanco, Alfonso Jesus Cabezuelo asked the young woman to give him fellatio and, given her refusal, “hit her in the face, punched her in the arm and pushed her to get out of the car.” at the time that he called her a whore”, facts for which, in addition to the conviction for the abuses, the judge has imposed on this defendant the payment of a fine of 240 euros for a minor crime of mistreatment of work.
