Two years after the crime of taxi driver Esusy, the accused’s detention is extended pending trial

The young man is now 21 years old. He did not finish high school and worked as a hairdresser. These data appear in the minutes of the hearing which was carried out by zoom on Monday morning. Homicide prosecutor Patricio Saldutti, who succeeded his counterpart Marisol Fabbro in the case, requested that the detention of the defendant be extended in an extraordinary manner. Today marks two years since his arrest, the maximum period prescribed by law to keep a person in prison without a conviction. This is an arrest that is made in light of the risk that, once released, the accused will jeopardize the investigation. Exceptionally, this period may be extended for another year.

>> Read more: Who can extend pre-trial detention for more than two years, a subject under debate

Public defender Celia Pasquali opposed the request: she said the preventive detentions were provisional in nature. He noted that the boy had no previous records and offered an explanation of what he was doing that night which should be investigated. Judge Pérez de Urrechu extended the preventive detention until April 20, 2022 and requested that an oral trial or some type of shortened agreement be convened within that time.. He also said that the precautionary measure can be reviewed during the preliminary hearing of the trial, scheduled for June 7.

Faced with this case, the prosecutor presented the written accusation against P. He asked for the sentence of life imprisonment for crimes of robbery, crimes caused by and aggravated by the use of a firearm, the previous attempted robbery with two victims, illegal possession of a weapon of war used in the act and possession of a 22 caliber weapon seized in Your home.

Theories

The crime took place on April 18, 2019. After 1:30 a.m., Esusy drove the Chevrolet Corsa to Casilda in 2000, almost on the corner of Formosa, to attend to a radio call request. Thanks to witness statements, images from municipal cameras and the taxi’s GPS, it was possible to reconstruct that he drove from the gas station on Avenida Sabin (formerly Travesía) and Cándido Carballo to the scene of crime.

According to the tax reconstruction, Three men on motorcycles came out at the intersection to steal it when they saw it parked, there was a struggle and the worker managed to escape by accelerating the car. Against this background they shot him down with a 9 millimeter pistol without stealing anything. At the scene was a nacelle of this caliber. The taxi driver’s wallet was near his seat. During the autopsy, a blow was detected on the forehead, a sign of a previous struggle.

>> Read more: Pre-trial detention of 45 days for the accused of the murder of a taxi driver

The assassination of the taxi driver led to a halt in activities and a mobilization of the sector, which for several hours blocked the entrances to the bus station. Mariano Moreno on a key day of Holy Week. The leaders of the chambers of taxi owners and the workers’ union met at the local government office with then-security minister Maximiliano Pullaro, days before an election day in the province. There was a demonstration by taxi drivers outside the criminal justice center when Ignacio P. drew up the first hearing. Right there a few Forty neighbors and relatives of Nacho maintained with posters that his arrest was hunting for “parsley”.

The young man was arrested at his home near the Cotar cooperative, about ten blocks from the scene of the crime. At that time he was part of the Nueva Oportunidad program at the La Carpita club. He was implicated by the recognition of a confidential identity witness who placed him in the assault before the driver’s attack. A few minutes earlier he was determined, Three young people on a Honda Twister motorcycle approached two boys who were on the corner of Passage Madrid and Casilda and that they managed to take refuge in the house of one of them when they warned that they were going to attack them. One of the motorcyclists pulled out a gun and fired a shot that pierced the front door of the house and was left in a downstairs room. Without finishing the assault, the trio escaped through Casilda to Formosa.

For the prosecution, and on the basis of this testimony, it was “Julito”, “Elías” and “Nacho”. The same ones who were assigned to the attempted robbery and the subsequent homicide of the driver, whom they ran into about 200 yards while fleeing. “Nacho” is the nickname given to Ignacio P. The other two are on the run.

>> Read more: One of those arrested for the crime of taxi driver Esusy has been released

The weight of proof attributed to P. was the reason for a strong arrest during the first hearings. The defense then pointed out that no element places P. in the shooting scene to the driver. The young man asked to declare, He said at that time he was chatting with friends at a kiosk in Junín and Iguazú and offered his cell phone as proof.

The prosecution says the comparison of the ballistic material collected in the two scenes – the crime scene and the previous theft scene – gave a positive result. In other words, the two bullets fired from the same weapon. He said the witness was named under the nickname “Nacho” and later recognized him in a series of people. From there, the prosecution concludes that the young man participated in a robbery with a weapon which, moments later, was used in the crime of the taxi driver.

The witness is a friend of the victims of the first robbery who came to their home after meeting them. At around 1:30 am he was putting the motorcycle away and saw “a motorcycle facing the wrong way from Casilda, a red Honda Twister unarmed with three on top”. “Hey, my friend,” he was greeted by motorcyclists, as he put it, whose nicknames he said. He quickly learned of the recent botched robbery from his friends. And when he left his home, a policeman summoned him as a witness to the proceedings for the death of the taxi driver.

Of “Nacho”, he said that “he lived near the Cotar” and that he always crossed it when he went to play ball. At the court hearing, he recognized him “because of the tattoo on his neck” and explained that he had removed an earring. The evidence also includes statements from neighbors and victims of the frustrated previous theft, as well as a full reconstruction by the Criminal Investigations Agency of the distances and times between the two events, which detected coincidences.