Nicolás Pachelo (47)
was close, or at least he thought so. He did the math and looked for as many courses and workshops as he could. During the trial for the crime of
María Marta García Belsunce
, which had him in the dock, he was already speculating about the time he had left in confinement.
But this Tuesday, Chamber I of the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the province of Buenos Aires sentenced him to life imprisonment for the crime of María Marta. The accusation by her widower, Carlos Carrascosa, and his family finally turned into a conviction. For him, it was devastating.
"
Unfortunately, the three of us are fighting alone against an entire system. I couldn't get them to put me alone in a cell for obvious reasons, but
that's as far as I'm going
," Pachelo wrote to his lawyers upon learning of the superior court's decision.
"
I was planning to end it tonight. I will look for my moment
," he indicated in another enigmatic message, as made known to those around him.
Pachelo, they said, began to say goodbye to his surroundings. "
I'm saying goodbye little by little, it's not easy
" and "
this goes beyond García Belsunce
" were other texts.
Pachelo, on the day of his acquittal verdict, December 2, 2022. Photo Guillermo Rodríguez Adami.
Raquel Pérez Iglesias, his defender, together with Marcelo Rodríguez Jordán, will appeal to the Buenos Aires Supreme Court for the conviction of the robberies and hopes to reverse the conviction for the homicide in "Horizontal Cassation", the process by which another court of the Chamber reviews the ruling and part of the evidence to validate - or not - its colleagues. Both agreed that their client is
"disheartened"
by the news.
Pachelo was sure: by the end of 2022, when the verdict of Thursdays Federico Ecke, Esteban Andrejin and Osvaldo Rossi was known, the former professional poker player expected a lesser sentence for the robberies committed at six houses in gated communities in Gran Buenos Aires, between 2017 and 2018, and the acquittal for the murder of the 50-year-old sociologist, committed on October 27, 2002 at her home in Country Carmel, in Pilar.
María Marta García Belsunce and Nicolás Pachelo.
He partially succeeded but, beyond celebrating the acquittal for the most serious crime, he furiously said that nine years of punishment was "disproportionate." He claimed to feel "happiness and sadness", relief at ending the accusation for one of the most relevant homicides in Argentine police history, but regret for the pain he faced for the robberies.
In August he had asked for conditional release and temporary releases, but they denied him. He spent his days in the Gorina prison, in La Plata, in a semi-open regime. He trained, he was always tanned.
He was passing through, or at least that's what he thought,
the final stretch of his prison life
. At least until this Wednesday, when he found out the news.
Pachelo went, in a few hours, from a semi-open regime to Unit No. 9 of La Plata,
a maximum security prison
. This establishment houses around 1,500 detainees and was several times under the scrutiny of Justice and human rights organizations for mistreatment and punishment of inmates.
He has been imprisoned since April 7, 2018, accused of six robberies of houses in closed neighborhoods in the province of Buenos Aires and asked for freedom as soon as he served two-thirds of his sentence.
They denied it.
His fate was tied to the decision of the Court of Cassation that had to resolve the appeals presented by prosecutors Patricio Ferrari, Andrés Quintana and Federico González. And by the lawyers of Carlos Carrascosa, Gustavo Hechem and Sebastián Maisón.
The judges of the Oral Criminal Court No. 4 of San Isidro argued their rejection due to Pachelo's record, who had already committed crimes again while serving suspended prison sentences. And that he had already been under the responsibility of his girlfriend, whom he proposed to house him and that he had committed a crime again.
But also because
the sentence was not final
and they were waiting for a resolution from Chamber I of the Chamber of Cassation that "could increase the penalty to a greater amount," the judges expressed when rejecting their request.
In a hurry, prosecutor Quintana also requested preventive detention for another robbery committed on July 20, 2017 at the Los Pingüinos country club in Ituzaingó. The video in which he is seen entering the property was aired in the trial and added another request for preventive detention for December 2023.
The prosecutors, with the expectation placed on this Cassation resolution, wanted to prevent Pachelo from escaping or at least serving the maximum time in prison.
EMJ