The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed the sentence of 27 years and 6 months in prison imposed on the head of a network dedicated to the sexual exploitation of adolescents which had its operations center in Macarao, Caracas.
Such a decision is contained in Judgment 505 drafted by Judge Carmen Marisela Castro and that she had the support of her colleagues Elsa Gómez and Maikel Moreno.
The convicted persons are identified as Leonardo Javier Barazare Solís (El Guasón), leader of the criminal network and his lieutenant Yeiquer José Méndez Hernández.
The investigation against them began in September 2022 once several victims made complaints against Cicpc-Caricuao, Caracas. The victims indicate that Leonardo wrote them on Facebook to invite them to be part of a modeling agency.
The alleged agency was located in the La Charanga sector, Macarao, where other teenagers were. It is there when the subject told them that they should be taken devoid of clothes, as a condition to let them leave.
The victims left but Leonardo demanded under threats, which they had to return the next day. The teenagers returned and Leonardo kept them retained to make a video starring an orgy with two men, one of them Yeiquer Méndez.
After the video, Leonardo told them that someone in the group would take them to the flag terminal to travel to Trujillo since a man was going to buy them for two months.
After spending the night in that house under threats, teenagers had the chance to escape through a window.
Trafficking in people
In October 2022 Leonardo and Yeiquer were arrested by a Cicpc commission that delivered them to the Public Ministry. The following month, specifically on November 10, the Public Ministry requested to open a trial against Leonardo and Yeiquer, according to accusation consigned by prosecutors Ronnie Hernández and Edwar Mijares.
The requested trial is for the crimes of trafficking in persons in mode of uptake for pornographic purposes. On February 1, 2023, the First Control Court with competence in crimes of violence against women, from Caracas, ordered the opening of a trial against Leonardo and Yeiquer.
This trial was held between August 10, 2023 and April 12, 2024, when the 5th trial court with competence in crimes of violence against women condemned the two defendants to fulfill the penalty of 27 years and 6 months in prison.
That conviction was confirmed on January 22, 2025 by the Single Chamber of the Court of Appeals in the field of crimes of violence against women.
The magistrates’ response
After the Court of Appeals ratified the conviction imposed on the two defendants, their defenders went to the TSJ Criminal Chamber to try to reverse such a sanction.
Before the magistrates, they consigned a appeal by contentive cassation of two complaints in which they accuse the Court of Appeals of having endorsed a conviction without foundation, since it was not proven in court that the defendants have captured the young women to prostitute them, according to the letter.
The magistrates recriminated that way of raising the appeal, since the Courts of Appeals are not to establish the facts, the power that only the Courts of First Instance such as the Judgment.
