Court rejects appeal of former Vice President of Ecuador due to Concussion

Globe Live Media, Monday, January 25, 2021

An Ecuadorian court rejected this Monday the appeal of the former vice president of Ecuador, María Alejandra Vicuña in a concussion case in which she was found guilty, reaffirming the conviction of January 2020.

“There is no procedural requirement omitted, this Court declares the validity of the proceedings and of the entire case,” said the National Court in a communication after the hearing.

And it resolves to “reject the appeal filed”, “partially accept the appeal presented by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office in relation to the quantum of the sentence”, and “ratify the conviction as the author responsible for the crime of concussion,” for which imposes the penalty of 2 years of deprivation of liberty “.

“In the written sentence the penalty and the corresponding fine will be modulated by making the exhaustive analysis”, the Court emphasizes.

Vicuña, 42, who had to leave the Vice Presidency in December 2018, after being accused, appealed a conviction related to the illegal collection of fees or tithes from his collaborators when he was an assembly member of the province of Guayas between 2009 and 2017.

In January 2020, she was sentenced to one year in prison and to pay $ 173,180 in compensation equal to four times the amount received from the contributions.

In the case, the Prosecutor’s Office argued that it received bank transfers from three of its advisers for amounts of $ 23,300, $ 14,650 and $ 5,345, respectively.

In addition, the court ordered the confiscation of a property of his property located in Samborondón, Guayas province.

In January, his defense, in the hands of Juan Carlos Salazar, requested the annulment of the sentence and that his client be declared innocent, arguing that “the criminal type and dogma, evidence acted that does not determine the material existence of the action and the mistakes made in the ruling “.

“The crime, according to what is stated in the sentence, was committed in the period 2011-2016 and was only prosecuted in 2018. This shows that the aggravating factors were not taken into account at the time of the commission of the act, therefore , the appeals presented by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office must be rejected,” Salazar said at the time.

For their part, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office argued at that hearing that there were “sufficient probative elements demonstrating the materiality of the action, the documentary, testimonial and expert evidence that was assessed at the time” and asked that the provision of not grant the conditional suspension of the sentence.

In today’s session, the Court of Appeals, made up of judges David Jacho, Dilza Muñoz and Iván León, rejected all the defense arguments of the former vice president.