Javier Betancort "voluntarily" entered prison but is still waiting for his sentence to be suspended

The Court has not yet ruled on his latest request, in which he asked to halt the execution of his second sentence in the Montecarlo case until his request for pardon is resolved.

March 10 2021 (13:58 WET)
Montesinos paid for Javier Betancort's trips while he was a councilor of San Bartolomé and then hired him

After spending months trying to avoid entering prison, Javier Betancort voluntarily went to the Tahíche Penitentiary Center last Wednesday, where he is already serving a sentence for embezzlement of public funds in the Arrecife City Council, within one of the parts of the Montecarlo case.

Just two days before, the Provincial Court had agreed to temporarily halt the execution of the sentence, until collecting the opinion of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusation regarding his latest request to suspend the one-and-a-half-year prison sentence. However, without having yet received those reports, Betancort decided to enter prison already.

Now, the Court has issued a new resolution in which it voids the suspension of the entry into prison, “since he voluntarily entered it”. However, the procedure to resolve the request he had made continues, and it would have little chance of succeeding. In his latest writing, the Court again requires the Public Prosecutor's Office to pronounce.

Specifically, Javier Betancort's lawyer asked that the fulfillment of the sentence be suspended until the pardon he has requested from the Ministry of Justice is resolved, and which must be resolved by the Council of Ministers.

The lawyer presented the writing on February 24, when Betancort had been summoned to the Courts to notify him that he had to enter prison within a maximum period of 24 hours. Based on that request, he did not enter prison on February 25, but finally decided to do so a week later, without waiting for a definitive response to his request.

Two convictions for embezzlement

Betancort was convicted in two parts of the Montecarlo case: one for the looting of almost half a million euros from the San Bartolomé City Council, where he was a Finance Councilor for the PP, and another for the embezzlement of 300,000 euros from the Arrecife City Council, where he charged invoices for services not provided after having left politics.

In both procedures, Betancort ended up confessing the crimes just before the trial began and obtained a reduction in the penalties, with none exceeding two years in prison. However, in the case of the second, the Provincial Court rejected his request to suspend the execution of the sentence and ordered his entry into prison last October, among other things because he had not returned the embezzled money, as he promised to do when accepting the agreement of conformity.

Since then, the Court has rejected all his appeals and the resolution has been final since last December, although its fulfillment had been delayed. Later, he opened this new path, asking the Government for a measure of grace. However, the request for a pardon does not necessarily halt the fulfillment of the sentence. The decision depends on the Court, depending on the circumstances of the case. And in corruption crimes, it is not usual for the suspension to be granted, especially when the request for pardon would have little chance of succeeding.

"He has been able to overcome the error and the social consequences of the crimes"

In that request for pardon, Javier Betancort states that he is “repentant” and that “he has been able to overcome the error and the social consequences of the crimes committed”. In addition, he appeals to his family and work roots, as manager of Juan Francisco Rosa's communication company, Lancelot Medios. “He has the recognition of his boss and his colleagues, being an appreciated person”, his lawyer maintains in the pardon request, which states that it has been supported by “managers and workers” of his company.

However, he acknowledges that he has not paid the civil liability of that sentence, which is an essential requirement to suspend entry into prison. However, he alleges that he has “justified the impossibility of making it effective at this time”.

In this regard, he maintains that he is paying the first sentence in installments, in which he also confessed to crimes of prevarication and embezzlement in San Bartolomé, and assures that he will pay the second also in installments once he has paid the previous one, or “when he lives in better fortune”.

He has not yet paid a single euro of that second sentence for which he is already in prison, although now, in the pardon request, he points out that “he can commit to paying 100 euros per month with great personal and family sacrifice, since he is the only one who works in his family nucleus” and that he assures that he has no assets in his name.

Both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusation must still pronounce on the possible suspension of the sentence until the pardon request is resolved, although until now the Prosecutor's Office has been demanding his entry into prison due to the seriousness of the crimes, the recidivism and the fact that he has not returned the embezzled money.

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