Joaquín Benítez, former professor of physical education at the Marist school in Sans-Les Corts, he remains at liberty, despite having been sentenced to 21 years and nine months in prison for having sexually abused four students when they were minors. Since July 2020, more than a year ago, the Supreme Court has the appeal on the table against this court ruling presented by the center’s insurance company, which was joined in September of that year by the former teacher’s defense. Benítez was the only one of the 17 Marist teachers denounced for pedophilia who was tried.
The legal sources consulted by this newspaper highlighted that since October last year, there has been no news from the Supreme Court. On that date, the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council, who are prosecuting Benítez, opposed the appeals and arguments raised by the defense of the former teacher and the insurance company. Since EL PERIÓDICO uncovered the scandal in February 2016, the former professor has never set foot in prison, despite having acknowledged some of the abuses he committed. Not even when the Barcelona Court, in April 2019, sentenced him to 21 years and nine months in prison for sexually abusing four students taking advantage of his superiority as a teacher, which allowed him, according to the sentence, “to commit the crime with greater ease & rdquor; between 2006 and 2007. Benítez’s situation has not changed, despite the requests made by the victims at the time. They fell on the broken sack.
The last opportunity
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Among the arguments put forward for not imprisoning him, the magistrates of the Barcelona Court highlighted that there were no “objective reasons & rdquor; to agree to his imprisonment, while remembering that the sentence was not yet final, as it was possible to appeal to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). The Catalan high court, however, confirmed months later, in May 2020, the condemnation and fully reject the resources of Benítez and Generali. Now the ball is in the court of the Supreme Court. If justice dismisses everything again, the former teacher will be closer to going to jail.
Benítez had been denounced by a score of ex-criminals, but only four of these lawsuits concerned crimes that the law did not consider prescribed. The other 16 Marist teachers, the majority religious brothers, could not be tried because the complaints of their respective victims were also declared prescribed. In February 2020, four years and a week after the staging of the ‘Marist case’, the Institut Germans Maristes signed an agreement with the Mans Petites association, created by Manuel Barbero, father of a victim, to financially compensate students who suffered sexual abuse while they were in school in Catalan centers owned by the order. The religious congregation ultimately paid compensation to 25 victims. In total: about 350,000 euros.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com