Former vice-president Amado Boudou was acquitted today of alleged irregularities in the purchase of 19 high-end cars during his tenure at the head of Economy Ministry, though he was handed a three-year suspended sentence for giving false data in the purchase of a vehicle in the 1990s.
Prosecutor Abel Córdoba had requested the former vice-president receive five years in prison in the unified trial, which coupled the allegations together. Federal Oral Court 8 – composed of judges Nicolás Toselli, Gabriela López Iñiguez and Sabrina Namer – imposed by majority rule a count of "primary accomplice of the crime of ideological falsehood."
Boudou, who served as economy minister from 2009 to 2011 in Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s first government, was found guilty of falsifying details in the transfer of ownership of a 1992 Honda CRX automobile, bought in Mar del Plata in 1993, prior to serving in public offence. According to the chargesheet, Boudou registered a fake address and provided false information on a form
he made between 1994 and 1995.
Prosecutors alleged that manoeuvre was an attempt to avoid the vehicle being included in separation of property talks related to divorce proceedings involving his former wife, Daniela Andriuolo.
Boudou was acquitted of crimes related to the alleged irregular purchase of 19 high-end vehicles for 2.3 million pesos by the Economy Ministry in 2009, when he served as a government minister.
peaking before the rulings were handed down by Judges Nicolás Toselli, Sabrina Namer and Gabriela López Íñiguez, Boudou proclaimed his innocence and claimed he was being “used” by the Government in order to allow them to “plunder the Argentine Republic.”
The Kirchnerite politician, echoing allegations levelled by Fernández de Kirchner in corruption trials against her, accused the Casa Rosada and the Judiciary of seeking to “persecute” their political opponents.
"They have used us to plunder the Argentine Republic. I did not commit crimes. The population has been entertained with bread and circus, while a small group looted the Argentine people. This trial shows how the Justice [system] is used to persecute someone,” Boudou charged.
Boudou, closely guarded by the federal prison service, has been jailed as he serves a sentence of five years and ten months in prison for crimes in the so-called 'Ciccone case.
He was convicted in August last year of passive bribery charges and "negotiations incompatible with the public function," after it was proven in court that he used shell companies and secret middlemen to gain control of 70 percent of the Ciccone Calcográfica publishing house.
The company, which was taken over by 'The Old Fund,' held contracts to print Argentine currency as well as material for former president Fernández de Kirchner's election campaign.
– TIMES/NA
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