Eric Velastegui, alias “El Padrino”, is in prison for rape, among other crimes. The Madrid Court has rejected his request, although he can now appeal
They call it “The Godfather” and was the founder, in the year 2000, of the first Latin band based in Spain, the Latin Kings. Eric Velastegui was also the brutal assailant of a couple and rapist of a young woman at the Casa de Campo in Madrid, for which it was sentenced to 21 years in prison (twelve for sexual assault). Now, as OPEN CASE has learned, he has requested see your sentence reduced taking advantage of a loophole in the law of yes is yes.
But the Fourth Section of the Madrid Court has just reject his claim. He must continue serving his sentence. Velastegui, also called “King Wolverine” or “King Eric”, has to appeal to the Supreme Court. He also has another penalty four years in prison for being the leader of the band that he founded and that declared illegal by the Madrid Court, which ordered its dissolution in 2011.
“El Padrino”, born in Ecuador in 1977, founded the Latin Kings in Spain in February 2000. He then created “the inca kingdom (a kind of delegation in Madrid) of the Sacred Tribe America Spain (STAS) of the Almighty Nation of the Latin Kings and Queens”. And he was the author of the founding manifesto of the band, written in Galapagar (Madrid).
wild attack
Three years later, on May 3, 2003, Eric Velastegui went with a colleague of his named Giovanni to the Madrid Country House. The two, armed with a gun and a crowbar, they assaulted around six in the morning a couple who was inside their car. They took their mobile phones, valuables, and then stripped the boy, who they locked in the trunk. Then the leader of the Latin Kings raped the girl at gunpoint.
Both were convicted by the Madrid Court for the crimes of robbery with intimidation, illegal detention and sexual assault. The sentence for Eric was 21 years (12 of them for sexual assault), for Giovanni it was 15 years (six for cooperating in the assault). Both have resorted to the courts, in this case to the Court of Madrid, to try to see their sentences reduced following organic law 10/2022 (known as the ‘yes is yes’ law).
“Proportionate to gravity”
The prosecutor opposed the sentence reductions and the Madrid Court has agreed with him, in an order for which the magistrate Juan José López Ortega is the rapporteur, “since the sentence imposed would also be taxable according to the current regulation”. The three magistrates recall that the 12-year sentence for rape is still in force with the legal change. In fact, it is the applicable maximum for that offensebut it turns out, as the judges who sentenced “The Godfather”, “proportionate to the gravity of the facts”.
In the case of the lieutenant, Giovanni Mantilla, the court also refuses to lower his sentence, in this case from six to four years in prison because, he understands, “with the current legislation it is also taxable the sentence imposed” at the time. The sentence, according to the court, is “proportionate to the seriousness of the facts.”
Both convicts can appeal this decision to the Supreme Court. “Against this order, it is possible to file an appeal, which must be prepared within five days of the last notification,” the magistrates explain. Giovanni is serving his sentence in a prison in his country, Ecuador. King Eric, for his part, is in the Texeiro prison (A Coruña), he has already served most of his sentence and has enjoyed various permits release from jail, up to one week in length. He still retains his ascendancy among some young gang members and any reduced sentence would practically set him free.