He Bogotá Municipal Criminal Court 48 of Guarantees ordered the Prosecutor’s Office to unarchive a file for alleged fraud, in which businesswoman Esther Inés Porto is formally accused.
This stage of the case has its origin in 2020, when the complainant, who pointed directly to the businesswoman of escammed her out of US$400,000, which corresponded to her life savings.
Angulo Santana went to the Prosecutor’s Office 160, headed by prosecutor Beatriz Sierra Cruz, waiting to be notified when the preparatory hearing for the trial would begin, because there was already an indictment drawn up against the defendant. However, the only thing he found was that his case had been archived.
Unarchive order. Photo:Judicial Branch
According to the decision of the Guarantee Judge on October 15, the then prosecutor Sierra Cruz I had no basis to request the file of the case, since this legal figure can only materialize when a complaint is in the initial stage of investigation. In this case, the businesswoman Porto Tobías was already formally accusedThat is, she had already gone through the phases of investigation, accusation and presentation of the indictment, for which the Prosecutor’s Office, in theory, had agreed to take her to trial for the crime of fraud.
For the court, “any claim to terminate the action due to lack of merit to accuse must be submitted to the knowledge of the competent judge through the corresponding request for estoppel.”
What the businesswoman said
Regarding this issue, EL TIEMPO contacted Porto, who assured that she had not been duly notified of the decision of the Court of Guarantees, that her right to the presumption of innocence remains firm and that she could even have been the victim of threats during the development of the process.
In 2014, the money delivered corresponded to just over 800 million Colombian pesos. Photo:ISTOCK
The designated victim
In dialogue with this newspaper, Angulo Santana expressed that, now, “from the Prosecutor’s Office I hope that everything is resolved in my favor, because it is a reality that “She owes me that money.”.
He managed to have this case archived even though there was already a payment agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office.
“The alleged business proposed by Mrs. Porto Tobías consisted of the wholesale redistribution of 434,000 pieces of clothing. To participate in said business, as Mrs. Porto Tobías told her, Mrs. Adriana Angulo had to invest the sum of 400,000 dollars and in five weeks would obtain the net profit of $402,209for a total of approximately $800,000,” the file reads.
Legally relevant facts of the file. Photo:Judicial Branch
It was also stated that “in order to mislead Adriana Angulo, Mrs. Porto Tobías used artifice and deception from the very moment of the pre-contractual approaches. During this negotiation stage, Mrs. Porto Tobías made false claims regarding business conditions.
Such was the seriousness of the file that, in July 2018, the parties attended a damage conciliation hearing before the Prosecutor’s Office, in which the businesswoman Porto Tobías put her signature and identification card, as well as her lawyer David Teleki. In the conciliation agreement the parties They agreed to compensation of US$500,000 in favor of the complainant, which would be distributed in payments during September and November 2018, and a final one in January 2019.
The signature of both parties in the conciliation process. Photo:Judicial Branch
The settlement agreement reads as follows: “The undersigned complainant, Adriana Angulo, and Esther Porto Tobías agree to keep all confidentiality of this process, for which reason neither of them will be able to report or disseminate the facts related to this process. It is recorded that the accused and her defense lawyer proceed to sign the accusation documents and the document of transfer of the accusation, which They will be prosecuted immediately if there is non-compliance with payment agreements.”
The next thing that had to happen was for Angulo to be paid, but that did not happen. And she was not called to trial either because filed the file.
The house, located in an exclusive area of Miami. Photo:redfin
What did the archiving order that was annulled say?
The then prosecutor Beatriz Sierra indicated in her file letter that, under her consideration, the initial conditions of the negotiation between the parties were consented to by the complainant, “that in a trusting, careless and unacceptable manner decided to hand over a significant amount of moneysupported by an informal draft of an unsigned agreement contract and later by a certification in English apparently issued by Viandsu Trading.”
Bunker building of the Attorney General’s Office Photo:Jesus Blanquicet. EL TIEMPO Archive
Now, the Prosecutor’s Office has in its hands the decision to move forward with the fraud trial or request estoppel before another judge of the Republic, which can accept the decision or force the investigating entity to collect more evidence. It was a lifesaver for Angulo Santana, because the case is about to prescribeeven though at some point in the development of the case there was a conciliation agreement that recognized compensation to the complainant.
Jhoan Sebastian Cote Lozano
jhocot@eltiempo.com
@SebasCote95 in X
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