The district attorney for the Buenos Aires district of Berazategui, Daniel Ichazo, investigated Marcelo “Teto” Medinaand the others involved in the open case for alleged labor exploitation and reduction to servitude in The therapeutic community “La Razón de Vivir”while its director, Néstor Zelaya, refused to testify and will remain detained like the rest of those investigatedas confirmed by his defense attorney Marcelo Biondi.
The former humorist and host of the VideoMatch program, Marcelo José Medina, was arrested at his home in Palermoaccused of being the visible face of the organization La Razón de Vivir, to recruit people with motivational talks on social networks and in various parts of the country, who were then allegedly reduced to servitude in subhuman conditions.
The detainees were transferred at 7:30 this Friday to the Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Related to Trafficking in Persons, Child Pornography and Grooming dependent on the Quilmes Courts, where they remained until around 6:00 p.m. and were transferred again to the First Berazategui Police Station. .
The defenders of the detainees complained that they were not allowed “to see the file” and even left the place after saying that they would speak with the Attorney General of the province “to let him know what is happening.”
Research on the community La Razón de Vivir
Medina and 16 other people were arrested on Thursday in a series of raids in CABA, Greater Buenos Aires and Córdoba.
“He just finished declaring for two hours, answered all the prosecutor’s questions, submitted the request for release and now we have to wait 5 days for the Guarantees judge to resolve his procedural situation”said one of Medina’s defense attorneys, Adrián Tenca.
“He was absolutely clear, he went only once a week, he worked from eleven in the morning to five in the afternoon, he fulfilled a role of giving talks to the boys and he has absolutely nothing to do with the role of this organization,” Tench added.
Later, he said that Medina “charged ten thousand pesos per talk, which was transferred to his CBU,” and that what his client did in this foundation he did in another fifteen.
“Through social networks, many people asked him for help and others, so he, depending on the place where these people lived, referred them to different communities,” he explained.
“Medina was an employee of each of the institutions with which he worked,” Tenca concluded.
Also the lawyer of Néstor Zelaya, who refused to testify before the prosecutor, said that the accusation of labor exploitation of young people with problematic consumption “is absolutely preposterous.”
Biondi anticipated the possibility that Zelaya will declare “next week”, once he studies the defense strategy.
“What I can assure you is that the people who have communicated with me since yesterday that I took up the defense, which are more than 80 or 90, refer to the opposite of what has been made known since the investigation in the form of that there was no type of action that made them work in a forced state or in deplorable conditions,” he said.
On the origin of the complaint, the lawyer remarked that “it has to do with a priest who was part of this farm, who later left.”
And he detailed: “At the time he was part of it, he never saw any allegedly criminal act. It is strange that after he left and opened his own farm for the same purposes, he began to denounce different facts.”
The families that accompany the closure of the place
Meanwhile, the mother of a young man who was interned in a La Razón de Vivir property, a complainant in the open case against that therapeutic communityassured that there are families who defend the place “because they have nowhere to leave the children”, assured that “it is a lie that they had 14 professionals” in service and maintained that the young people “had no food, water to bathe, or medical assistance” .
“Families do not know where to take their children, it is understandable. But they also have to realize that children do not have to live in the situation they live in. They are children who are sick and need a decent life”The woman, who introduced herself as Marcela, told radio Con Vos, but whose name was changed to protect her identity.
The center “is all a lie,” said the woman, who ironically nominated her on several occasions as “the reason for dying.”
“They said they had 14 professionals and it was all a lie. Everyone put on titles, the director said he was an accountant and it was a lie,” he added, referring to Zelaya.
Regarding the situation in which the young people lived there, the complainant stated that “they had no food, they had no water to bathe, they had no medical assistance, they had no psychological assistance.”
Asked if she saw any progress in her son throughout the hospitalization, she replied: “Zero, nothing.”
“In one year he saw the psychologist twice. She was a psychologist at the time”he pointed.
Regarding the method of payment, he explained: “They made me deposit money at a kiosk that Rubén Durán was in charge of. It turns out that I deposited, deposited and never reached it. My son did not even have soap to bathe in.”
about the priest “Quique”, who was named relatives of people interned at the place, maintained that “he is a good person” and that “many children did not die thanks to him”.
As a corollary, he asked the authorities “to please take action on the matter. I understand the families. Do not believe everything that the directors tell you, that is why there are 17 detainees. That justice is really done.”
The current situation in the community
In his turn, one of the rehabilitated young people who temporarily took charge of the therapeutic community after the arrests of those responsible for the center, assured that “the boys are calm, carrying out their activities as appropriate”, and pointed out that “the worst is over “.
“The worst thing was experiencing the raid, having patrolmen inside as if the boys had committed a crime,” the young man, named Catriel, told Télam, stressing that “today the situation is normal” at the Florencio Varela community headquarters, in the south of the Buenos Aires conurbation.
Catriel, who along with five other rehabilitated youths decided to take charge of that center, said that “the boys just woke up; we are all rehabilitated boys united and we are going to try to move it forward.”
“My reason for being here today is to fight for the recovery of my teammates,” he added.
