Argentine court grants parole to former vice-president Boudou

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – An Argentine court on Thursday (22) granted the benefit of parole to Amado Boudou, the country’s vice president between 2011 and 2015, who had been sentenced to prison three years ago in a corruption case.

Sources from Boudou’s defense confirmed that the decision was made by Judge Ricardo Basílico of Federal Oral Court 1 after considering that the former vice president has already served two-thirds of the sentence handed down in 2018 as part of the so-called Ciccone case.

Earlier this year, a criminal enforcement judge had reduced Boudou’s sentence by 10 months and last week the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation added another month to the sentence reduction.

The sentence reduction was granted by virtue of a rule that allows this benefit to those who pursue some kind of studies during the incarceration period.

With these 11 months reduced from his imprisonment, the Court now determined that the former vice-president has already served two thirds of the sentence imposed, enough time to allow the prisoner to request the benefit of parole to complete the sentence out of prison.

In any event, Boudou had already been out of prison since April 2020, when a judge granted him the benefit of house arrest.

SENTENCE AND APPEAL

On August 7, 2018, an oral court sentenced Boudou to 5 years and 10 months in prison after finding him guilty of passive bribery and negotiations incompatible with public office for the irregular purchase of Ciccone money printing company in 2010, when he served as Minister of Economy in the first government of Cristina Fernández (2007-2015).

After more than 4 months in prison, in December 2018 the same court accepted the request for release lodged by the defense – pending a final conviction – and Boudou regained his freedom, monitored with an electronic anklet.

But in February 2019 he returned to prison, as the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation found “procedural risks” in his freedom.

Boudou’s defense appealed the sentence, but last December the Supreme Court of Argentina upheld the sentence against the former vice-president.

THE COURT CASE

The Court determined that Boudou, along with his partner José María Núñez Carmona, acquired the bankrupt company Ciccone Calcográfica – later named Compañía Sudamericana de Valores – when Boudou was Minister of Economy.

In 2010, a court declared the bankruptcy of the printing company due to tax debts, but lifted it shortly thereafter, at the request of the company itself, after having negotiated a payment plan with the Treasury and it remained with The Old Fund of Alejandro Vandenbroele, considered to be Boudou’s front man.

According to the case file, Boudou took advantage of his position and agreed, along with Núñez Carmona, to transfer 70% of the company to the printing company’s owners in exchange for the execution of the necessary measures to enable the company to resume operations and sign contracts with the Public Administration.