There are figures who transcend their roles and come to represent the political climate of an era. Carlos Stornelli is one of them. His name circulates in a territory where Justice, politics and intelligence overlap and where each movement is interpreted as a message. For more than 30 years, his role as a public official put him in different situations that went down in history. Public discussions with Carlos Menem, Néstor Kircher and Cristina Kirchner left him at the center of the conflict that orders Argentine public life from 1993 to the present.
His latest hit is the Cuadernos Cause, a file in which Stornelli was associated with the idea of a prosecutor who investigates an illegal collection system that, according to his hypothesis, reached the top of political power. For one sector, this role made it the guarantor of the most relevant research on democracy. For another, he was the operator who used sensitive files to put pressure on Kirchnerism. That reading deepened when, parallel to his accusation against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, his name appeared in scenes of the D’Alessio case, a file in which the role of a pseudo-lawyer and spy who extorted people on behalf of Stornelli was investigated.
Both stories—the accusatory architecture of Cuadernos and the shadows of the D’Alessio file—combine to shape a character that can no longer be explained only by his work as a prosecutor. Stornelli embodies the way in which politics reads and uses Justice, and the way in which intelligence services find spaces to operate in that gray area. That is why his biography became inseparable from polarization: because each cause that bears his signature feeds, on one side and the other, a story about power. At this intersection the central question is defined today: if Stornelli is a prosecutor trapped by the crack or if he is a decisive piece in his own gear.
Notebooks. Stornelli’s accusation against Cristina Kirchner in the Cuadernos Case is based on a mother idea: between 2003 and 2015, an illegal collection structure operated that, according to the prosecutor, had Néstor and Cristina Kirchner at the top. Below, Julio De Vido as organizer, Roberto Baratta as daily liaison and a group of businessmen who, according to that reading, oiled the mechanism with “mandatory” contributions.
To link the then president with the flow of bags, Stornelli uses three pillars: what drivers and secretaries said, what repentant businessmen admitted, and the trail of the final destinations of the money. Former secretary Fabián Gutiérrez spoke of bags that entered the Casa Rosada and left with Daniel Muñoz; Oscar Centeno explained his compulsive notes and located deliveries in Uruguay 1306 (Cristina Kirchner’s apartment) and in Quinta de Olivos. For the prosecutor, the sequence always ends the same: Muñoz receiving money in places linked to the Kirchners. Hence a central phrase of the request: the “main recipient” would be Cristina Fernández.
The repentant ones finish putting together the picture. José López said that he coordinated with Muñoz and stated that in 2011 he spoke about the system directly with Cristina. Carlos Wagner accepted the “contribution” regime, Juan Chediack said that López presented himself as an emissary with a direct line to the former president, and Ernesto Clarens assured that he transmitted “orders” attributed to her on how to collect and distribute work. For Stornelli, this proves not only knowledge but participation.
During the first days of the trial of the Cuadernos Case, the reading of the accusation advances on the specific facts: payments from Wagner in 2010 that left Baratta towards Muñoz; six IMPSA deliveries between 2008 and 2010; contributions from Isolux Corsán, Electroengineering, always with the same choreography: businessman–Baratta–Muñoz. In some cases, the figures rise to US$ 3 or 4 million in a single day.
The prosecutor built that accusatory architecture during 2018, but in 2019 he would face a case that would run parallel to his investigation. While the hypothesis of an illicit association headed by the Kirchners advanced, scenes emerged that placed him at the center of another sensitive file: the D’Alessio case.
Complicated. Stornelli’s story within this latest file bothers even Comodoro Py’s regulars. Because, according to the reports in the file, he would have used an illegal intelligence network for non-sacred matters. The first sign came with the complaint of Pedro Etchebest, an agricultural producer who met Marcelo D’Alessio, a character eager to show himself as a spy. According to Justice, D’Alessio asked for $300,000 on behalf of Stornelli to prevent him from being involved in the Cuadernos case. It was not an improvised acting: it came with supposed chats, audios, notepads and a security that can only be sustained when one feels close to the center of gravity of power. There was a scene in Pinamar that was decisive. At the CR spa, D’Alessio organized a meeting where Etchebest saw Stornelli sitting with him. At the end of the meeting, D’Alessio took him to greet the prosecutor as if it were part of an administrative procedure. A brief greeting, two polite sentences and an inevitable reading: for Etchebest, that gesture sealed a pact that had never been agreed upon. From there, the alleged extortion took flight.
The mechanics were repeated in the case of the former director of PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company, Gonzalo Brusa Dovat. There was no request for money, but there was organized pressure to get him to testify before Stornelli. D’Alessio transported him in a Range Rover, accompanied by two alleged DEA agents. The trip was intimidating and long-winded: promises of protection, veiled warnings and the idea that, in the end, the word that awaited his testimony was that of the man carrying out the hottest cause in the country.
In both episodes, the Federal Oral Court 8 that convicted D’Alessio observed a pattern: Stornelli’s power as the central resource of the maneuver, even without direct evidence that he had actively participated. The file fails to clarify what Stornelli did while his figure was used as collateral for shady operations. He didn’t need to sign anything or give orders. It was enough for his name to be available for others to complete the scene. That involuntary—or not so involuntary—availability continues to be the most uncomfortable aspect within Comodoro Py. From those days the memory still remains that Stornelli had refused to testify before Judge Alejo Ramos Padilla. On television they told him about the days he was rebellious.
The second part of the file adds two stories that cross Justice, intelligence services and private life. The protagonists are the lawyer José Manuel Ubeira and the pilot Jorge Christian Castañón. In both cases, D’Alessio’s interlocutor is the same: prosecutor Stornelli.
The plan against Ubeira appears in a series of chats reconstructed by Oral Court 8 made up of Sabrina Namer, María Gabriela López Iñíguez and Nicolás Toselli. Ubeira defended Oscar Thomas in the Cuadernos Case and questioned the actions of the prosecution. D’Alessio sent the prosecutor videos from a hidden camera. Stornelli responded: “Give me a hand.” D’Alessio’s return was immediate: “I give it to the lawyer who wanted to turn you over. That’s my job. I arrive and do it.” Days later, D’Alessio reported that he already had “the data of the daring lawyer.” And he warned that the “plan with the crazy camera” was underway, in a hotel room with its own cameras. The Court interpreted all of this as a criminal scheme aimed at creating a false scene to harm a lawyer who questioned the prosecutor’s actions.
The case of the pilot Jorge Castañón moves along a more personal line. This is the ex-husband of Stornelli’s current partner, Florencia Antonini. According to the ruling, Stornelli sent D’Alessio a series of messages describing Castañón: that he said he had been a Navy pilot, that he would work at United, that he was a naturalized Peruvian and “bagayero.” D’Alessio responded: “I’ll take care of it.” Three days later, the prosecutor asked: “Did you find out anything about the Peruvian?” And D’Alessio already had an internal United Airlines organizational chart with the pilot’s position, boss, and internal code. Then he launched the phrase that was highlighted in the ruling: “You decide if I cut it in the USA or here.” The Court interprets this message as an offer to harm Castañón in one country or another. Stornelli did not object to the offer: he asked what could be done and agreed to discuss it in person. D’Alessio even offered to “put something in the pilot’s suitcase” so that he would have problems. At the trial, Castañón confirmed the veracity of the data provided by D’Alessio.
In both stories, the judges clarify that Stornelli is not accused because he was never required as such. They cannot, for formal reasons, advance their criminal responsibility. But even with that limit, the fundamentals leave him in a central role in the ecosystem in which D’Alessio operated. The common thread is always the same: D’Alessio acted as an operator willing to clear the way for the prosecutor, whether with hidden cameras, espionage or maneuvers that border on the illegal. And Stornelli received the reports, responded and enabled the continuity of the actions.
