chronic cause that lasted a lifetime

Several times, I imagined writing this note. In each of them, he extracted and added the data of the investigation which, this Monday, was ratified in great detail by the federal justice.

The Sunday 8 July 2007 I woke up earlier than usual, even though I had slept little and poorly: the day before, around midnight, we had closed an issue of the newspaper which I had worked on for more than three months on the main subject. “Strange operations at the Ministry of the Environment”, was the cover’s main title, in big black letters and above a photo of Gustavo Cerati playing guitar with Shakira.

I got up impatient to pick up the print edition and see my work, but an infinitely bigger surprise awaited me on the bathroom counter: a little nod and a pregnancy test with the two red lines that confirmed the news. Astonishment turned into joy, and the wanderings of Romina Picolotti, their relatives and friends with state money withdrew.

It was only the start of a hectic week: Monday 9, while Buenos Aires was dampened by a historic snowfall, Clarin progressing with the second part of the investigation and the government organized the defense of the young civil servant at the home of one of her collaborators. So far the predictable.

Things changed 24 hours later, when Néstor Kirchner’s chief of staff and Picolotti’s political godfather, Alberto Fernández, called a press conference at the Casa Rosada to make reference to the case. This is where I went. On the first floor, next to an office where Fernández and his ward sat angry, a screen showed pictures of me, my family, my grade and false information about each of them.

“Pseudoperiod”, “supposed investigative journalist”, “operator” and the most resounding “author of imbecility” were some of the considerations that the second most powerful man in government poured into the live TV show, without any of the colleagues present being able to ask questions and I did not show the audio of the interview in which Picolotti admitted the veracity of my information.

The furious personal attack, antecedent that other journalists would suffer one and two years later, this time he intended to isolate the chronicler from the environment in which he worked, attributing to him a massive deception with false information, even to its own editors.

Not even the scandal that caused this move – which a Fernández collaborator named Juan Pablo Biondi– He stopped her: the following Saturday, when President Kirchner, his ministers and the candidate for the head of the government of Buenos Aires for the ruling party -Jorge Telerman- inaugurated the tourist train to Puerto Madero then failed, two journalists from Bugle they got a call from there to ask if they could announce to this event “that they threw him in Savoy”.

The personal reference, which I never allow myself, has another objective than that of late and sterile victimization. Instead, he seeks to refresh the memory regarding the arts and ethical elasticity of these officials who are today at the top of power, faced with the dissemination of information they knew perfectly well it was okay from start to finish.

Justice began to march immediately, with the difficulties, obstacles and squats that still characterize it. Prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan promoted a case unifying the four complaints he received, and his team pushed and demanded action from Judge María Servini, who a few weeks later raided the secretariat building and he took 63 boxes with documentation.

In the drawers of Bugle they stayed – there they continue, I think – piles of invoices and papers certifying Picolotti’s transparent fraud and his friends with the budget that the State had entrusted to them to clean the Riachuelo, reconvert polluting industries, prevent and fight forest fires and other environmental problems, none of which declined under his leadership.

I was never summoned to show these papers, nor to certify my work as a witness in court, until the first day of the oral trial which has now ended. In Marijuan’s office, then Picolotti’s lawyer, Fabien Musso, he came to say hello and left his card: worked in Esteban Righi’s studio… chief prosecutor. “Go figure it out, I have to accuse a client of my boss“The prosecutors were surprised. Alberto Fernández had personally intervened in front of Righi to defend his protege.

Years later, when his investigation was already judged with a devastating decision, Marijuan was again visited. This time of the United States Embassy: from the State Department they wanted to verify the information that Romina Picolotti, American citizen and resident of the exclusive Palm Beach areaIn Florida, she was “persecuted” by Argentine courts, with no evidence against her. The envoy took a file with unassailable information. No complaints were ever heard again.

But the file floated in the swamp of judicial bureaucracy. And he supported the very strong political influence, of course. The same clear evidence with which TOF 6 convicted the former official on Monday they were there all these years, over a long decade. They did not reveal millionaire companies like those of Hotesur and Los Saucesnor a perfect cosmos of corruption like the one recorded in the Cuadernos de las Bribes. It showed “only” a triangulation of the money to a parastatal foundation and its use in the purchase of plane tickets, friends and family rentals, private jet rentals and personal purchases for Picolotti, his family, his friends and his girlfriends. Something small. Indisputable.

And this is perhaps precisely the most difficult thing to digest: so small next to these huge cases, the Picolotti affair clearly reveals the terrible work of the Argentine justice and the thousand and one resources and Chicanas to delay it and cheat on her. So that time passes – a powerful ally of the corrupt – despite the remarkable effort of prosecutors Marijuan and Diego luciani, who organized and supported the prosecution at the hearing, who after three adjournments demanded and insisted that the trial begin immediately, and asked in his plea that Picolotti returned the stolen money.

Finally the day of the sentence arrived. What a tribute to dozens of employees and line managers of the secretariat, suppliers and subcontractors who faced their fear to denounce the abuses that took place in Ambiente, share documents, offer their testimony and provide evidence to the press and the courts. Among them, a special memory for the accountant Patricia Baez Rocha, example of transparency and commitment to the state, recently deceased. Knowing all the details of the secretariat numbers, she was first threatened and then seduced, when Alberto Fernández He personally offered her a great job in his Cabinet in exchange for his silence. The current president does not yet remember the response he received.

With the sentence of this Monday, justice closes a first chapter of this story of delinquency and laziness. Fourteen years later. From now on, appeals will come before the Chamber of Cassation and possibly before the Court, to continue to remove the increasingly light weight of the law. When that firm condemnation comes, maybe those two red lines that Today their name is Camilo Luciano Savoia and he is in the first year of high school find him at university. A lifetime. Without exagerating.