In the audience he hinted at it and then said it. Prosecutor Ana Dean will continue her investigation into Nicolás Schiappacasse’s cell phone and it is “feasible” that a case be started together with the Complex Crimes Prosecutor’s Office, if he were able to gather elements that behind what happened with the player there is an organized group. “Many links arise, many people involved arise regarding the cell phone that we have not clearly identified and that it is not an easy investigation because of everything that this network of violence in sports implies,” Dean said in court.
In fact, the crimes for which the investigation against the aurinegro was formalized are within those allowed to be settled through an abbreviated process. But that did not happen by decision of the Prosecutor’s Office, said the defense attorney, Rafael García. “We consulted (on this possibility), but since the Prosecutor’s Office, attentive to the fact that it says that there are elements of investigation, did not accept at this time to reach an abbreviated”, he expressed at a press conference.
The representative of the Public Ministry pointed out at the hearing that the player had not wanted to testify at the prosecutor’s office and when Garcia was asked why, he replied: “The Prosecutor’s Office also considered that he did not need his statement and pointed to side events that nothing was going to influence to one side or the other at this point in the process”.
The Justice charged Schiappacasse with the crime of internal trafficking in weapons and ammunition in formal competition with a crime of actual reception and carrying a firearm in public places. While the investigation continues, he must serve 90 days in preventive detention. García, who initially requested that the prison be home-which was denied by judge Ana María Guzmán- asked that the National Rehabilitation Institute consider the high profile of the player and the danger that can be exposed if he crosses barrabravas in the jail. His first destination is the Las Rosas prison and after an evaluation it will be decided where he will be held until the term expires. In any case, the defense will not appeal the ruling. The Prosecutor’s Office had requested 120 days in prison, since it understands that the volume of information it has to process to investigate is large.
Along with the weapon that took him to jail, Schiappacasse’s cell phone was seized, which served to demonstrate that the athlete illegally acquired firearms on at least three occasions. On the device were numerous photos of him posing with various weapons. Too allowed to verify that he took them with him in public places such as football matches, “when they went out to do graffiti related to the painting of which they are fans” and that he lent them to different members of the Peñarol fan.
To justify her theory, the prosecutor read a series of messages that the player crossed with different people at different times. The most recent was from January 20 —almost a week before the classic that was played in Maldonado—, in which he sent a photo of the weapon that was later seized and of another along with a message to a WhatsApp group with three other people. that He said he was going to “give them to hell”. In the image, Dean said, part of the Louis Vuitton bag that was seized the day of the arrest was visible.
But these practices took, at least, a few months. On October 11 of last year, for example, he sent photos of two semi-automatic pistols and said: “A military friend of mom’s wants to sell it to me, he leaves it to me for a thousand, I think.” Two days later, he sent another photo of the gun and wrote: “Let the chicken catch.”
Almost a month later, on November 10, he spoke with another person to whom he told that he had lent a gun to a third party. Days later and chatting with another young man, he asked: “Did you use the nine?” “No, brother, he has all the things you gave me,” they replied.
In another message Dean read, drugs are involved. A contact scheduled as “Mamá Uruguay” sends him an audio demanding that he believes he is a drug trafficker. I send him: “It’s going to jump shit for a joint and two bullets that you throw you make the bandit.”
The prosecutor stated that the player was detained in a routine control. Around 5:40 p.m., the official said, policemen interrupted the path of the Hyundai brand car in which Schiappacasse was sitting in the back. They made the driver, the co-pilot, the aurinegro and another young woman who was behind him get out of the vehicle. With “evasive and suspicious attitude”, The defendant left a black kangaroo-type sweatshirt that he was wearing on his lap, in the back seat of the car, with the intention of hiding it. He was asked why and he replied that he was “just a diver”. When they searched him they found the 9mm pistol with a magazine and eight bullets. The weapon was reported stolen on February 9, 2020 from Charrúa and Coronel Alegre, in the Pocitos neighborhood.
“He is not an ordinary person”
Lawyer García opposed the preventive detention arguing that the investigation was almost complete and that he did not consider that there was a risk of obstruction, but that the request of the Prosecutor’s Office was based on “social pressure”. Dean, for his part, stated that the investigation is “just beginning” and there are many links.
“He himself has links with people from the Peñarol fans, but they are not common links. They are not common friends. With them he exchanges weapons, with some he negotiates weapons”, he stressed in the first instance.
But then he added: “Schiappacasse is not an ordinary person either, he is a professional soccer player who was on his way to a classic wearing… (He is) a professional player, whom we should require him to behave differently because he had every chance of not being involved with these people and he was carrying a firearm with eight projectiles.”
