The cassation validated the sentences of up to eight years in prison for a group found guilty of crimes of sexual exploitation

There Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation validated a judgment that condemned a group that was dedicated to the trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation in a night brothel in the city of Ushuaia. In addition, it ordered the payment of a larger compensatory indemnity to one of the seven victims of the case.

The decision, to which he subscribed GlobeLiveMediafell into the folder “Montoya Pedro Eduardo and others without appealwhere prison sentences of Pedro Eduardo Montoya -at age 8- and Ivana Claudia Garcia -to 5 years- to be responsible for the crime of “trafficking in persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation aggravated by the plurality of victims and by the participation of three persons”. The third member of this “organized task” group was Lucy Campos Alberca, sentenced to 4 years in prison for being a “necessary participant” in the crime in question.

It was dictated by the Room II of Cassation, integrated by the judges Guillermo Yacobucci, Carlos Mahiques and Mariano Borinskywho unanimously rejected the appeal filed by the convicted Ivana Claudia García, who had, among other things, challenged the “arbitrariness” of the sentence, pronounced by the Federal Oral Court of Tierra del Fuego on June 11, 2021.

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“The Oral Tribunal believed itself accredited that (…) on October 9, 2012, when the search warrant issued by the Federal Investigating Magistrate in the Nightclub ‘Sheikh’ (…) from the city of Ushuaia, Seven women were recruited, transferred and housed in the aforementioned premises for the purpose of sexual exploitation in all cases, to mediate for this an ill-treatment in the conditions of vulnerability of the victims“, explained the Judge Yacobucci in his vote, where he found the criteria used in the sentence to be reasonable.

In this context, this court had considered that it was proven that Montoya and García were a couple who were dedicated to “the recruitment, transfer and exploitation” of their victims in the “Sheikh” brothel. According to the assessment of the evidence, he was the owner of the premises and she was his companion”in the system for selecting, recruiting and receiving victims”. For his part, Campos Alberca benefited from the trust of both and “controlled the exits and entrances of victims in the sexual exploitation carried out by Montoya”.

“The display of activity in the Nightclub ‘Sheikh’ It operated between 11:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., with a “drinks” regimen on which the women received a percentage of the patrons’ drink and which, according to the complainant and AKS victim’s own statements, included touching aimed at achieving the ‘pass’ -sexual service-“, reported the Judge Yacobucci with reference to the judgment of the Court of Tierra del Fuego.

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“It is within this framework that the conclusions of the judgment relating to the verification of the ‘decisive acts of coordination, selection, recruitment and recruitment for the purpose of sexual exploitation (…); it’s clear take advantage of the vulnerable situations of women victims to which they were submitted in the premises that the named and associate García, directed with his associate Montoya as author; coupled with the task of facilitating the transport and execution of the acts of exploitation of Lucy Campos in the iter-criminis that embraces the joint decision of the defendants”, he expressed in his vote, which was then respected -in this respect- by the judges Carlos Mahiques and Mariano Borinsky.

On the other hand, alternately the two mahiques as Borinsky agreed on the need to increase the amount of compensation fixed to one of the victims of the case according to “the duration for which it appeared (…), the moral and physical damage suffered, the material damage caused and the rights of the person affected”. In this regard, they mentioned the importance of following the United Nations Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons insofar as the said legal instrument contains an international obligation assumed by the State.

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