Carlos Mattos acknowledged having bribed a judge with a fortune to favor him

Although the agreements with the Prosecutor's Office fell, businessman Carlos Mattos accepted the charges in a hearing on April 21. He acknowledged that he gave 100 million pesos to the municipal civil judge 16 of Bogotá to benefit him in the lawsuit for the representation of the Hyundai brand in Colombia.

He did the recognition before the 11th criminal court of the Bogotá Circuit in the middle of the second case against him. In the first, he had also accepted charges for having offered bribes to judicial officials to direct guardianship to judges, who were in turn bribed, who would give him rulings in his favor.

In this case, the bribe was reportedly handed over to Judge Ligia del Carmen Hernández, who was sentenced in 2019 to two years and one month in prison, suspended from public office for more than five years for the crime of improper bribery.

She would have granted precautionary measures in favor of Mattos, which allowed her to maintain representation of the Hyundai brand in Colombia, when the car company wanted to end the agreement. Mattos would have given him gifts and the sum of money to receive a judgment in favor.

The judge, who accepted the charges in September 2019, said she only received 30 million, the rest of the money would have been given to her when she was no longer in charge of the process, because she had been transferred. Finally, he received a 50% penalty reduction.

The same thing can happen now with Carlos Mattos. Although the preagreements fell, the acceptance of charges served for the prosecutor and the defense to ask the judge to consider the definition of the conviction for the crime of bribery that establishes between 63 and 78 months.

The Prosecutor's Office requested that the sentence be assessed from the age of 63 months, as reported by the newspaper El Tiempo, while the representative of the Judicial Branch, victim of the trial, Francisco Bernate, maintained that this is the minimum of the penalty, but other elements must be taken into account.

Although Mattos has shown willingness to cooperate, due to the failed preagreements, he has already paid compensation of more than 3.7 billion to the Branch and accepted the charges; account must be taken of the malice and the impairment of justice for the bribes delivered.

It will be the judge who must consider the penalty he will impose and the benefits for accepting charges and the millionaire compensation to the victims. In the other case for the bribery of civil judge Rinaldo Huertas, to whom Mattos gave 700 million pesos, the conviction will be announced this Friday, April 22.

This Thursday it was also known that the 30th Judge of Knowledge, who is going to convict Mattos, asked the Prosecutor's Office to investigate him and all those involved in the failed agreements with the investigating body for crimes that journalist Gonzalo Guillén denounced.

According to Caracol Radio, the journalist sent a right of petition in which he stated that a conversation with Mattos and defense lawyer Iván Cancino would reveal crimes involving even the judge.

Guillén's complaint also involves prosecutors Daniel Hernandez and Álvaro Betancur along with lawyer Alejandro Sánchez. It will be the Prosecutor's Office that will resolve whether there were any irregularities in the pre-agreements that had advanced, but which were eventually withdrawn by the prosecution.

The problem revolves around a meeting between Guillén and Cancino, in which the lawyer told him that Mattos was going to falsely testify against him.

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