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After 7 years of investigation, 103 witnesses and 1,117 documents provided only by the Public Ministry, the Third Oral Criminal Court of Santiago read the verdict of the Corpesca case, the first oral trial of illegal financing of politics, declaring guilty to Former UDI Senator Jaime Orpis for 6 crimes of tax fraud and two crimes of bribery and former deputy Marta Isasi for the crime of bribery.
In the case of both former parliamentarians, in addition, the court rejected the accusation of repeated tax crimes presented by the Public Ministry. One of the arguments put forward was the non-presentation by the Tax Service (SII) of the corresponding complaint.
The investigation dates back to 2013, from the complaint of repeated economic benefits provided by the fishing company controlled by the Angelini group to Orpis and Isasi, through the facilitation by former parliamentarians and third parties of false fee tickets. Likewise, it was possible to identify the simulation of false contracts between Orpis and the Senate, to defraud the Treasury through parliamentary assignments.
Orpis – senator between 2002 and 2018 and who resigned from the UDI in 2016 in the middle of the investigation of the case – risked 21 years in prison and according to the indictment of the Central North Prosecutor’s Office, he would have received more than $ 233,000,000 from Corpesca to change to favor their interests in Congress. For Isasi, who was a deputy between 2006-2014, the Prosecutor’s Office asked for 7 years in prison.
The oral trial of the Corpesca case began on March 25, 2019, with five defendants, including the Angelini family company, charged as a legal person, as was corroborated today by the court, for the crimes of bribery perpetrated by their then general manager Fernando Mujica. Against the company, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the payment of a fine of 20,000 UTM, 5 years of temporary prohibition to celebrate acts and contracts with State agencies, in its maximum degree.
In today’s verdict, the court also decided to find Raúl Lobos, a former Orpis adviser, guilty of fraud against the Treasury in the case of a contract.
The reading revealed a plot of deceptions such as delivery of false ballots, trout consultancies, services not provided, business lobbying and inflated payments in the first case of black silver in politics that also intersects with the processing of the controversial Longueira Law.
Various actors
The case is related to the controversial Fishing Law, since it incorporated at the last minute an article through which for three years the Angelini Group’s fishing company benefited from a “ceiling” on the payment of taxes that saved it $ 4,670 million. The article was proposed by Senators Jaime Orpis and Fulvio Rossi. Regarding the latter, the Prosecutor’s Office decided not to persevere in the investigation.
The investigation also added other parliamentarians or today ex-parliamentarians such as Carlos Bianchi, Alejandro García-Huidobro, Antonio Horvath and Hosain Sabag, on whom the Prosecutor’s Office also rejected insisting on the investigation “because they do not have sufficient information to found an accusation.”
However, in an abbreviated procedure, Francisco Mujica Ortúzar, former manager of Corpesca, were convicted for the repeated crime of bribery and for repeated tax crimes, and Georgio Carrillo Vercelino, main adviser to Congresswoman Marta Isasi until November 2011, who was convicted for tax crimes to 61 days and a fine for consulting the firm for the fishing sector, among others.
From the Corpesca case, the Asipes edge emerged, a non-formal investigation into the financing of parliamentarians from the Biobío region, while the Fisheries Law was being processed. One of the accused in this area is the president of the UDI, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe. In 2019, Pablo Longueira was dismissed in this case.
Orpis assumed yesterday before the court that “the truth is that for the financing of political activity, I effectively recognized facts that constitute a crime (…) In different instances I have asked for my apologies and today I reiterate them. I am not, after this process, a trustworthy man ”, he pointed out.
Yesterday, the former deputy Marta Isasi also intervened in court, where she accused that “they removed me from politics with blasphemy and slander. They destroyed my life, it was a social labor murder ”. If you put ‘Marta Isasi’ on the Internet, a series of disqualifications will appear, but until a few days we will know what the verdict of the sentence is. In other words, they have prejudged me for almost eight years for something I never did, “he added.
The hearing for communication of the ruling will take place on April 16, 2021 at 12 noon.
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