Pablo Escobar’s butler lost his lawsuit for the third time to stay with the capo’s farm

The butler began working on the farm in 1991, when Pablo Escobar was one of the most wanted in the country. But seeing that nobody returned to the farm, after the capture and subsequent death of the capo, the worker stayed there and started a paintball field and a restaurant, despite the fact that the property already belonged legally to the state.

William Duque began working on the La Manuela farm as a gardener, then he began to ascend and ended up becoming butler. The property was one of Escobar’s properties and is located on the edge of the El Peñol reservoir, Antioquia.

As well, When Duque first began his role as butler, the Medellín cartel boss fell and he was confined in the jail that he himself built in Envigado. Escobar later managed to escape and the authorities began their arduous search.

While the Public Force chased the boss, Duque stayed at the hacienda and 20 years later decided to file a lawsuit to be recognized as the owner. This November 10, it was known that the Supreme Court of Justice denied his aspiration.

According to El Espectador, “In the case there was what the lawyers call“ acquisitive prescription ”, which implies that, If a person has lived in an asset for more than two decades, even without the deeds being in their name, they could demand that they be recognized as the owner“.

It should be clarified that no member of the capo’s family returned to La Manuela, since after his escape from Envigado prison, the capo died at the hands of the authorities in 1993 and Victoria Eugenia Henao, Escobar’s widow and whom Duque recognized as his boss, went into exile in Argentina with her two children, which is why she did not make contact with the butler again.

The Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice described the conditions under which Duque acted as owner:

“He installed posters with ‘private property’ advertisements and barbed wire fences. Although he left the main house intact (now in ruins), he improved the service dwelling, converted the stables into rooms, took care of the tree species, and carried out the maintenance of the lighting and the paths ”.

But also, He also rented a part of the land to build a paintball field, motocross tracks and a restaurant.

Still, the self-proclaimed owner apparently didn’t count on the fact that the farm had gone through a process of domain extinction and therefore since 2005, it was declared property of the State, because it could be shown that the boss acquired it with illicit money.

The civil court of Marinilla, where Duque filed the statute of limitations, denied the request for the first time because “he had not demonstrated that he was the owner of the property or his permanence in that capacity for more than 20 years”.

But the Fund for Rehabilitation, Social Investment and the Fight against Organized Crime (Frisco), which has managed the farm since it was handed over to the state, said that the butler had acknowledged that he was not the owner, but that he belonged to Victoria Henao’s family.

“He confessed it in the kidnapping procedure, saying to retain the property as collateral while the labor lawsuit where he had sued was resolved for owing years of wages, social benefits and social security contributions “, they assure documents of the Court.

After the refusal, Duque appealed and the file went to the Antioquia Court, which argued that since 2007 the property had ceased to be private, in “Fulfillment of the sentence of extinction of domain that the property handed over to the State.”

“The ruling turned the property into a tax asset from its registration in the real estate registration folio, remaining, not only in the head and power of the State, but not to be acquired by prescription, whose sole destination is the public utility “the Court wrote.

Despite this, the butler continued his crusade and asked the Supreme Court of Justice to review the judgment in cassation, but The Civil Chamber again denied his claims.

“The property was suitable for usucapir – what Duque requested – until September 18, 2007, at which point the sentence declaring its extinction of ownership was entered in the registry. After that date, possessions cannot be established, as they are insignificant, innocuous and ineffective to compute the time of belonging “, the magistrates wrote in the sentence.

They also added: “The rulings issued by the labor courts, which denied recognizing the appellant as a ‘worker’ of the former owner (Victoria Henao), verify an inconsistency in the plaintiff’s behavior in front of the property, because on the one hand, he claimed in that lawsuit payments and social benefits as an employee and holder of the asset; and on the other, in parallel, he claimed to be a possessor “.

The Court in turn recalled that “You cannot exercise prescription on fiscal assets, such as the La Manuela farm”, and that this prohibition “It is justified to protect them from the actions of third parties that seek to affect their purpose of serving the community”.

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