On the morning of this Friday, June 28, 2024, a San Juan police officer was convicted and disqualified for being a “snitch.” In August 2023, Officer Benito Andrés Azcurra, while at the 32nd Police Station in 25 de Mayo, leaked to a friend that the local force was going after his nephew, but the information was wrong and he later revealed this. The oral and public trial began on Tuesday, June 25, and concluded this Friday with a five-month suspended sentence and a one-year special disqualification from holding public office.
The agent was tried for the crime of failing to fulfill his duties as a public official. Prosecutor Iván Grassi, in his arguments, asked for a sentence of two years of non-custodial imprisonment and four years of disqualification from holding public office. For its part, the defense, represented by attorneys Martin Zuleta and Silvia García Gutiérrez, requested an acquittal. Earlier, at the beginning of the trial, Zuleta had raised a nullity, as he had in the investigation stage, arguing that the prosecutor had requested the referral to trial one month after the end of the term of the preparatory criminal stage. Judge Andrés Abelín Cottonaro took up the request and indicated that he would resolve it at the end of the trial.
The trial was due to begin on Monday, June 24, but the defendant Azcurra did not show up. The judge declared the police officer in rebellion and ordered his arrest. However, the situation was resolved without the use of public force, since the lawyer contacted his client and he stated that he had confused the date because he had lost his cell phone.
The trial lasted three days and concluded this Friday, June 28. After the allegations, Azcurra, in his last words, said nothing. Finally, Judge Cottonaro rejected lawyer Zuleta’s motion for annulment and sentenced the agent to a sentence of five months in suspended prison and one year of special disqualification, a sentence much lower than that requested by prosecutors Grassi and Victoria Martín.
The case
“Dog. Do not say anything. They fall on your nephew. They go for the Yara. Pa’ shut up. They are leaving here. Don’t name me. The 10th is going there”, with that message, agent Benito Andrés Azcurra, warned Roberto “Coti” Muñoz that the Justice and the Police were going to the home of his relative. The man passed on the information he received about the cash, but was surprised when he found out that the police operation was at his house due to a complaint of gender violence.
The man tried to make the police understand that they were wrong; he even, in desperation, ratted out the agent, who at that time worked at the 32nd Police Station in Casuarinas and had found out when they asked for support for the procedure.
Following this, the Justice of the Peace of 25 de Mayo, Graciela Rodríguez, who had intervened in the case of gender violence against Muñoz, filed the complaint, which ended with the agent being convicted.
