He Porcel case stopped moving in the field of complaints and crossed precautionary measures to fully enter a different judicial stage. After more than a year and a half and a dozen complaints from her children’s former classmates, Justice prosecuted, without preventive detention, the businessman Marcelo Porcel by corruption and aggravated sexual abuse of minorsin addition to having produced material of sexual content, a crime that is one of the ways of exercising or promoting child prostitution.
Furthermore, it moved forward with concrete measures such as prohibition on leaving the country, restriction of movement and surrender of the passport under warning of arrest. In a file that had already escalated due to the accused’s attempt to stop journalistic dissemination, the change of stage is evident: from the dispute over the story, to the judicial consolidation of the facts.
Judge Carlos Bruniard ordered the processing of Marcelo Porcel in CCC case No. 36627/2024, by considering proven—with the degree of probability required by this stage—a series of extremely serious crimes. According to the resolution, the businessman was charged as perpetrator criminally responsible for seriously outrageous aggravated sexual abusecommitted against minors under thirteen years of age and in a foster care context since the minors were in their home as they were companions of one of their children. The magistrate confirmed that these were repeated events involving at least ten victims.
To this figure is added, in an ideal contest, the crime of corruption of minorsalso on multiple occasions, and in one of the cases, the production of sexual representations of a minor. This last crime derives from the investigations carried out on the businessman’s cell phone, in which recordings were found that he secretly made in the bathroom of his home when his children’s colleagues were showering.
The resolution not only advances the criminal classification but also sets specific limits on the personal situation of the accused. The magistrate, although he did not dictate preventive detention as requested in the complaint, imposed on Porcel the prohibition of being absent from your home for more than 24 hourswhich in fact implies an impediment to leaving the country without judicial authorization. Additionally, you must deliver your passport within 24 hoursunder warning of immediate arrest in case of non-compliance. The measure was communicated to the National Directorate of Migration, in an attempt to ensure the subjection of the accused to the process in a case that, due to its volume and severity, is beginning to consolidate itself as one of the most sensitive files in criminal jurisdiction.
Marcelo Porcel is a powerful businessman who was a concessionaire of Oh! Buenos Aires -I would have left the business a few months ago-the property where the Designin the heart of Recoleta. In addition, with that brand he bought a lot in the Nordelta area where he also has the project of building a shopping center with similar characteristics to the one in Buenos Aires. Son of the historic founder of Argencardthe credit card that was sold to the Exxel Group in the nineties. In addition, the family owns several fields in the Cañuelas area.
The file began with the story of six classmates of the accused’s son, all students at the Palermo Chico School. The prosecution was supported by the evidence and testimonies of at least 10 minors who appeared in court to denounce the abuses that took place in the luxurious Le Parc tower, on Godoy Cruz and Cerviño, another apartment in front of this building, and the Porcel office, a few meters from the Buenos Aires Obelisk, for acts committed between 2022 and 2024.
The complaint, dated July 5, 2024, gave rise to case number 36,627/2024, filed in the National Criminal and Correctional Court 50, in charge of Carlos Manuel Bruniard, with the intervention of the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office No. 1, whose owner is Pablo Turano.
The file then began a silent pilgrimage of a group of parents from the Palermo Chico school that, at the request of their children, they decided to tell their truth and denounced Porcel. Once the case began, the magistrate ordered a precautionary measure that prohibits the accused from any type of contact – direct or indirect – with the alleged victims and their families. This perimeter prevented Porcel from approaching the Palermo Chico School and also the Gimnasia y Esgrima de Buenos Aires (GEBA) club, where several of the complainants play on a soccer team. Beyond these measures, it was only processed today.
In December, THE NATION He told for the first time about the case that was being processed slowly in Justice. Immediately afterwards, 3 more minors decided to report Porcel.
In the pages that constitute the evidence on which the judge relied, the harsh stories of his children’s classmates were captured. Porcel actively participated in sports activities, organized meetings at his home, offered to transport children and was constantly available. This availability, which at first was interpreted as generosity, changed over time. These meetings almost always ended at their home with the boys invited to sleep. It was about a constant participation of the adult in spaces that usually belong to the adolescent world.
In the file, the minors declared that there had been provision of alcohol at teenage gatherings, in addition to economic incentives: money in exchange for consuming alcoholic beverages, prizes for “lasting longer,” transfers to virtual wallets. In the testimonies, there were mentions that He induced them to drink alcohol in exchange for figurines of the 2022 World Cup. On another occasion, they said, he would have compensated with money those who walked around the boardroom table in an office in their underwear.
The testimonies of the boys, which were taken on the Gesell camera, were coincident. They all described a methodology that was based on the complicity of an adult with a group of 13 or 14 year old adolescents in which the defendant occupied, for years, a central place.
On January 19, 20 and 21, after the publication of LA NACION, three more of his children’s companions joined the existing complaints and testified in the Gesell Chamber. The hearings were taken without representatives of the judge. Then, the minors reported that they were all victims of a modality already described in previous hearings.
They said that alcohol, incentives and “massages” to which Porcel subjected them were the way in which the harassment manifested itself. Several located them in the same places such as the office in downtown Buenos Aires or the apartment on Cerviño Street, in the luxurious Torre Le Parc, where the businessman and his family live.
In January, furthermore, Porcel tried to “muzzle” the press. He presented requests for precautionary measures against 13 journalistic companiesamong them LA NACION, América TV, Grupo Telefé, Editorial Perfil, Infobae, Crónica, Grupo Clarín and C5N.
Of that total, it emerged that Only three precautionary measures have been granted by different courts. In those three cases, the judges would have expressly enabled the judicial fair to advance with the proposals. However, the resolutions were never notified.
Finally, Justice moved its chips. He prosecuted him, although he did not order preventive detention, as requested by Justice. More than a year and a half passed, and that pilgrimage of the parents who led their children to tell their truth, began to bear fruit.
