The oral trial against Leonardo Cositorto for the alleged pyramid scheme of Generación Zoe in Goya, Corrientes, continued this Wednesday with the presence of several defendants. In addition to the leader of the organization, Leonardo Cositorto, five other accused are being tried: Miguel Ángel Echegaray, Maximiliano Javier Batista, Lucas Damián Camelino, Nicolás Ismael Medina, and Javier Sebastián Medina.
The Judiciary of Corrientes reported that during the hearing this Wednesday, both Cositorto and Batista requested not to participate, a request that was authorized by the Court according to Article 313 of the new Criminal Procedural Code. This article states that a defendant cannot leave the hearing without the permission of the court, and if granted, must be represented by their defender.
Nicolás Ismael Medina, one of the defendants, is in Córdoba and therefore participated in the hearing remotely. During the session, four witnesses proposed by the prosecution, represented by Rubén Barry and Juan Carlos Castillo, testified.
The trial resumed after the prosecution rejected a previous financial agreement between the defendants and the 98 victims. Cositorto's lawyer, Guillermo Dragotto, requested a one-week recess due to a change in defense strategy and stated that the financial agreement did not imply an acknowledgment of responsibility in the facts.
Dragotto stated, "The principle of the agreement must be the equivalence of what they have suffered as damage. It does not mean an acknowledgment of participation in the facts. In this case, since it involves money, it will be monetary."
