The defense requests the annulment of the case due to irregularities and the release of Constantin Dumitru and Priscila Lara Guevara
He trial for the theft of the 45 bottles of high-end wine in the Atrio de Cáceres restaurant has been seen for sentencing after the statement of the experts and the conclusions of the parties in which the prosecutor Carmen Barquilla has assured that “numerous indications” prove that the defendants, Constantin Dumitru and Priscila Lara Guevara, are the perpetrators of this robbery perpetrated in October 2021.
Before magistrate Joaquín González Casso adjourned the session, Constantin Dumitru took the floor to defend his innocence and that of his partner. The accused has recalled that on their phones No photos or conversations alluding to the events have been found and he has questioned the expert evidence, since “nothing has been found” for which he has wondered “where are the bottles”, and has criticized that such an important winery did not have surveillance cameras inside.
Thus, the third and last day of the hearing in the Provincial Court of Cáceres has passed with the statements of the five experts who have corroborated, on the one hand, the value of the stolen wines, and on the other the DNA analysis found in the bathroom of room 107 of the hotel and whose samples correspond to the defendants, according to the reports of agents of the General Police Station of Madrid who analyzed these “cellular remains” that “are compatible” with the profile of Pryscila and Constantin, and that of an unknown third person.
Regarding facial identification, the scientific police have also ratified the analogies between the Photographs carried out when the accused were arrested and checked against the passportbut not with the images that appeared on the security cameras because they were of poor quality and the results could not be conclusive.
Regarding the expert who appraised the wines stolen from the restaurant’s cellar with three Michelin stars, has declared that the expert opinion was commissioned by the insurer on October 28, 2021, the day after the theft, and concluded it with a “meticulous and laborious” methodology dated February 22, 2022.
To prepare the report, he used the advice of professionals, distribution channels for these high-end wines and auction houses, for which he determined that the value of the 45 stolen bottles rises to 753,454.45 eurosan amount that adjusts to “an objective market value” of the wine from the Château D’Yquem and Romanée-Conti wineries that were stolen, and that coincides with the compensation that the owners of Atrio received after reaching an agreement with the insurer Real.
Conclusions of the parties
Regarding the conclusions, the prosecutor Carmen Barquilla maintains her request for four years and six months in prison for both defendants for a crime of robbery with force in a public establishment that is especially serious due to the high amount of the stolen objects and their “historical value”, in relation to the 1806 bottle. He also requests compensation from the insurance company for the appraised value of the wines or the restitution of the bottles.
The prosecutor considers that the penalty is “proportional and adequate” since, throughout the trial, It has been proven that the defendants are the perpetrators of the crime of robbery, although “there is no direct evidence regarding the authorship of the facts” but “numerous indications” reinforced among themselves and interrelated that have been endorsed by witnesses and expert evidence that place the defendants in room 107 of the Atrio hotel on the night of the events.
The DNA, the fingerprint, the comparison of the telephones, the ownership of the car used and the security recordings show that the people who occupied that room were the ones who perpetrated the robbery since, While the woman called the receptionist to ask for food and take him away from the reception post, the man took the opportunity to go down to the cellar from where he left around half past one in the morning with a backpack and two bags. that “apparently they weighed a lot”, according to the prosecutor, who has requested the viewing of the security cameras by the court but it has not been possible due to technical problems.
The prosecutor has defended that the investigation has been “scrupulous with the rights of the accused” and the tests have been carried out with total neatness, which has led to “multiple indications” that undermine the presumption of innocence. “These facts are accredited and there is a plurality of indications that prove that the defendants are the perpetrators of the robbery”it is finished.
The private prosecution, represented by the lawyer for the Reale insurance company, Rafael Mateos, has indicated that the expert opinion on the value of the bottles “has been objective”, for which he claims the amount of 753,454 euros, which was the amount compensated to the owners of Atrio, and the restitution of the stolen bottles, as well as five years in prison.
“Numerous irregularities”
For her part, the defendant’s defense attorney, Sylvia Córdoba, has requested the annulment of the cause for the “numerous irregularities” that have occurred in the investigation of the case and in the police investigation, and has requested the acquittal of its clients since it has not been possible to compare “not a single piece of evidence” but rather evidence that would not lead to a conviction.
Córdoba has also requestedto “immediate” release of his defendantssince both have been in the Cáceres prison since last summer, something on which the judge must rule.
In her conclusions, the lawyer has defended that the fundamental rights of the defendants have been violated and has “disproportionate” the “indiscriminate” request for the traffic of telephone calls on the night of the events in the vicinity of the hotel, something that has also been able to violate the privacy of “thousands of people from Cáceres”.
Besides, It has denounced that the chain of custody of the defendants’ telephones has been broken and that the complete dump of what they contained was not contributed to the investigation, but rather “modified information” that was classified at the convenience of the investigators.
Regarding the evidence provided by the recordings, it has stressed that “they cannot be assessed because they are of poor quality”, andIn them, no one is distinguished and, moreover, they have not been able to see each other at trial.
He has also referred to the impossibility of transporting 45 bottles in two sports bags “for space and weight” and doubts about the magnetic card that was used to enter the warehouse, since the use of the card in room 106 was also recorded, where some friends of the Atrio owners were staying.
The lawyer has referred in her speech to the fact that the winery did not have security cameras inside and to the lag in the hours of the recordings that “is not supported by any technical report”, as well as the possibility that the door was open, which would no longer be a robbery but a theft.
Nor is it proven, according to their conclusions, that the defendants had visited the hotel in Cáceres on three previous occasions, since There is no official report on this matter and, regarding the DNA in the room, he has defended that it is not known how he got there.
“My clients are not Bonny and Clyde,” said the lawyer, who also criticized the expert’s report on the value of the bottles because “He is not a wine expert” and because the document has been contributed to the cause a year after doing so. “Doubt should favor the prisoner,” Córdoba stressed, concluding that “without evidence there is no crime.”