The tenth judge of the Circuit with Knowledge Function of Bogotá issued the conviction against John Nelson Poulos, who must serve 512 months in prison, that is, 42 years and 8 months, for the femicide of DJ Valentina Trespalacios.
After a year and a half of the investigation, on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 4, the American was found guilty for the crimes of aggravated femicide and concealment, alteration and destruction of evidentiary material.
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The robe explained that the foreigner will not be entitled to receive any benefit or reduction of sentenceIn addition, Poulos will not be granted a conditional suspension of his sentence or house arrest.
Furthermore, the judge in the case highlighted that the murderer of the 23-year-old girl “has no right to any surrogate.”
John Poulos’ defense requested that he be detained in the extraditable pavilion of La Picota prison, in Bogotá. However, during the hearing, the judge clarified that the decision on the place of confinement corresponds to Inpec (National Penitentiary and Prison Institute) and is not within its jurisdiction.
The judge confirmed that as soon as John Poulos completes his sentence in Colombia, he ordered the expulsion of the murderer to his country of origin.
The decision of the judge in the case is due to the law that establishes the elimination of any type of criminal benefits for those convicted of feminicideannounced by the Minister of Justice, Néstor Osuna, in recent days.
The rule, which eliminates benefits and criminal subrogations for those who are convicted or are in preventive detention for the crime of femicide, was signed by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Equality, the presidents of the House and the Senate, and finally sanctioned by President Gustavo Petro.
Minister Osuna explained what the project is about: “a law that withdraws criminal benefits for cases of feminicide, although these benefits were already severely restricted, they are now restricted even more (…) Those convicted of feminicide did not have the right to benefits like 72 hours, but they did retain some, and this law withdraws them,” he indicated.
The prosecutor of the Bogotá Section demonstrated the crime that occurred on January 22, 2023 during the trial. The foreign citizen moved Valentina Trespalacios to an apartment in the north of the city, where, According to the Prosecutor’s Office, he hit and suffocated her in a fit of jealousy. Security cameras captured how the aggressor wrapped the victim’s body, hid it in a suitcase and abandoned it in a garbage container in the town of Fontibón.
The young woman’s body was found hours later by the authorities. The Prosecutor’s Office revealed that Poulos rented a car for three days, which he used both to be with the young woman and to dispose of her body. After committing the crime, he went to El Dorado airport to return the vehicle and took a flight to Panama City, Panama.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Poulos exercised a cycle of psychological violence on Trespalacios, controlling his actions and reviewing his social networks and cell phone. These arguments were accepted by the judge, who declared him guilty of aggravated femicide and concealment, alteration or destruction of material evidence after an exhaustive investigation that revealed his responsibility in the murder.
The trial presented compelling evidence, including forensic evidence and key testimonies that placed Poulos at the crime scene and directly linked him to the femicide, in addition to his confession.
According to the judge in the case, John Poulos acted with intention and premeditation when murdering the 23-year-old girl. “Don’t come and tell us that it was a manslaughter or a simple homicide. That has no place. On the other hand, feminicide does. The objective was to control Valentina in everything she did with her, to the point that she had to give him daily accounts,” the magistrate told Poulos. Furthermore, he stressed that it was not an accident and that there was control and domination behavior over the victim.
He added that hiding the body in a suitcase was evidence of his intention: “Common sense is to go to a doctor in case of unconsciousness, but he assumed she was dead and hid her. She had already taken his life from her. That is called acting maliciously, with conscience and will,” she emphasized.
During the hearing, the accused insisted that “I never attacked anyone in my life” and alleged that “anything that could have happened to Valentina Trespalacios could have been my body, but not my spirit.”
However, according to prosecutor Santiago Vásquez, the evidence indicated that “it was not an act of love or sex, or that Mr. Nelson Poulos ‘went a little overboard.’ No, here he did not exceed a little in the face of a duty in a risky position that constitutes a culpable crime. No, here what is evident and what the injuries allow us to conclude is that Valentina Trespalacios Hidalgo was brutally beaten, severely physically reduced and subjugated by a man,” declared the prosecutor.
