Global Courant
L-Gante was benefited from the extraordinary release in the case in which he is accused of kidnapping and threatening two people in General Rodríguez. But the singer of “cumbia 420” will still be detained in the DDI of Quilmes until the measure is firm.
Elián Ángel Valenzuela, real name of L-Gante, participated on Friday in what is called a “visu” hearing before the judge of Guarantees 2 of Moreno Gabriel Castro, who had to decide whether to release him. That day he was transferred to the Courts of Moreno from the Departmental Directorate of Investigations (DDI) of Quilmes where he is detained. He was accompanied by his lawyer Juan Pablo Merlo, who replaced Alejandro Cipolla in the defense.
Valenzuela was able to internalize during the hearing about the elements of the file that compromise him and ask his doubts regarding the accusation.
Claudia Valenzuela, mother of L-Gante. Photo: Telam
Now Castro decided to give L-Gante extraordinary release but also gave the prosecutor in the case and the complaint the possibility to appeal the measure and, in that case, the final decision will be made by the Mercedes Appeals Chamber. Meanwhile, the singer will continue to be detained in cell 4 of the Quilmes DDI.
The Guarantees judge had to resolve the request for extraordinary release between Monday and Tuesday.
With the change of lawyer, Valenzuela got the Justice to partially modify the qualifications of the crimes that are imputed to him. The singer is now accused of “illegitimate deprivation of liberty in an ideal contest with coercive threats” against Gastón Torres and “illegitimate deprivation of liberty in an ideal contest with simple threats” against Rosa Passi.
In this way, he removed the aggravating factors of “use of firearms” and “perpetrated against a member of a public power” in the case of Torres, a Moreno municipal employee.
Although the judge first rejected Valenzuela’s request for ordinary release, he had left the question of the extraordinary appeal open. He asked the singer’s new lawyer to rule on the arguments formulated at the time by Cipolla and provide a verifiable address where L-Gante would be staying in the event that they give him house arrest.
According to Merlo, from his studio they presented videos from security cameras in which the two complainants are seen saying goodbye to L-Gante after the alleged episode of “illegal deprivation of liberty” and “threats” that led him to be detained. “You don’t greet your kidnapper before leaving,” argues Merlo, confident that the judge will take the images into account to resolve the appeal.
Rosa Passi, the mother of a childhood friend of Valenzuela and one of the complainants, appeared spontaneously to testify at the Moreno 9 prosecutor’s office to expand her statement, according to Merlo. “Gastón Torres is his boss,” Merlo clarifies, a fact that could imply some kind of conditioning in his first complaint, something that the judge should also take into account.
Torres is a municipal employee in Moreno and who promoted the complaint that left Valenzuela detained. He accuses him of having spent 23 minutes “held against his will” in the white BMW of L-Ghent, to which – always according to his complaint – he would have climbed under threat. A few meters from that same vehicle, Passi would have climbed, who would now deny having been kidnapped by the singer.
For Merlo, resolving each of the cases against L-Gante is the priority. He has at least three in the judicial department of Moreno and General Rodríguez, two brought to trial. In all cases they accuse him of threats.
The arrest of L-Ghent
The complaint was made on May 27 by Gastón Torres, a neighbor of the Valenzuela family and father of friends of L-Gante, who lives in the Bicentenario neighborhood of General Rodríguez.
That day, at the exit of Moreno’s “Río” bowling alley, there was a fight with several “members of the so-called Mafilia”, the group of friends of L-Gante, who moved en bloc to accompany him.
After the conflict, the police arrived. One of L-Gante’s friends called him to ask for help and for fear that they would take him into custody. It was thus that Torres began to be threatened by Elián Valenzuela. “You messed with ‘La Mafilia’, you messed with ‘420’, you’ll see what will happen to you,” he would have told her.
According to the complaint, members of that same group went to his house and “physically assaulted both him and his family” and then “a white BMW drove by Valenzuela passed, lowered the window, pointed a gun at him and forced Torres to get in the car”.
Friends of L-Gante in front of the DDI of Quilmes where he is detained.
A few meters away, a neighbor of the singer, who had participated in the first discussion with L-Gante’s friends, was also intercepted and forced to get into the same vehicle, as confirmed in the complaint.
Torres remained “23 minutes captive, until L-Gante received a call assuring him that his friends had been released by the police and he freed the victims,” said Leonardo Sigal, the lawyer representing the complainants.
The complaint, according to the prosecutor’s accusation, was confirmed by the security cameras, by the geolocation of cell phones and by the “statement of the police officers, witnesses and relatives of the victims.”
With this evidence, the prosecution requested the arrest of Valenzuela, the judge validated the request and ordered three searches.
MG
