Luis Escobar / La Paz
The serial killer Richard Choque, from La Paz, and the butcher Rubén Omar Centellas Quevedo, from Santa Cruz, obtained house arrest thanks to the same modus operandi of a network of judges, lawyers, and doctors. The two offenders presented a medical certificate for diabetes and the defense of the victims was not summoned to grant this benefit. In the first case, the Public Ministry “concretized” its theory of a consortium of lawyers and judges.
In the last few hours, the Prosecutor’s Office apprehended Carmen Solari, Richard Choque’s lawyer. “In the search we found countless documents and she proved that she was only dedicated to processing criminal execution processes. She drew attention that we found a resolution with the same characteristics with which Choque obtained his house arrest and the participants are the same, “said prosecutor Johan Muñoz.
In 2015, Choque was sentenced to 30 years in prison without pardon for the murder of a 20-year-old girl at her home in El Alto.
In 2019, Choque requested to leave the San Pedro prison and the First Criminal Execution Court, which at that time was led by former judge Rafael Alcón, granted him house arrest for 18 months. The resolution was issued without the presence of the plaintiff and with the support of a medical certificate that reported diabetes and gastritis, signed by doctor Freddy Torrejón.
Before her arrest, attorney Solari said that she was “never” her attorney. “I don’t know the man or his relatives. I only did the favor of signing the memorial to a colleague, Marlene Paco”, the jurist told Página Siete. She assured that neither Choque nor her relatives hired her services.
In the expansion of Choque’s statement, taken on Tuesday at the Chonchocoro prison, he denied having any kind of relationship with former judge Rafael Alcón. “When I left, when they gave me house arrest (…) and since it was New Year’s, Dr. Paco told me to give her a whiskey or something for New Year’s, since she got me out (of jail),” he said.
Asked about the amount that he paid his lawyer to carry out the process, Choque replied: “I already told you, 3,500 US dollars. I collected all the money and sold all my things in San Pedro, I lent myself to friends from school (…) Later, I gave the money to Dr. Paco (…) about 10 days after I met her”.
After the raid on the offices of lawyer Solari, prosecutor Muñoz assured that “the thesis that the Public Ministry had was ‘concretized’, evidently there is a consortium of lawyers and judges.” The representative of the Prosecutor’s Office said that Choque’s lawyer and her colleague worked together. “They obtained, thanks to the medical certificates, house arrest. That was the thread to investigate and pave the environments, ”he specified.
For this reason, the Prosecutor’s Office will charge them by a consortium of judges and lawyers. The prosecutors commission will determine whether to request preventive or house arrest, after evaluating the documentation found in the lawyer’s office.
“According to the documentation we found, there were other prisoners with final sentences who used the documents that were used to (release) Choque and thus obtain house arrest. It seems that it is the modus operandi of this consortium that acts in the criminal execution courts”, concluded the Prosecutor.
Dismemberer with house arrest
“The judge told us that the appeal will be dealt with in a hearing that never came,” he said. He indicated that they were not notified. Like Choque, the dismembering came out with house arrest.
When the dismemberer was released, the victim’s family appealed the decision and on January 7 a hearing was held in the First Criminal Chamber of the Court of Justice of La Paz and the request was accepted. The arrest of the quarterer was ordered.
The criminal’s defense filed an action for freedom before the Sixth Criminal Investigation Court of El Alto and won. The determination was appealed and is in Sucre.
