• Events A man with two arrest warrants and a miss, alleged perpetrators of the theft of 45 exclusive bottles from the cellar of the Atrio restaurant

  • Arrest The National Police arrests in Croatia the two authors of the theft of 45 exclusive bottles from the cellar of the Atrio restaurant

The Criminal Court No. 8 of Madrid has sentenced Constantín Gabriel Dumitru -the alleged co-author of the theft of 45 bottles of wine at the Atrio de Cáceres restaurant in October 2021- to one year in prison for a theft committed in 2019 at the store gourmet 'Laviana', from the Salamanca district of Madrid, from which he took a bottle of whiskey valued at 5,250 euros.

The conviction of the 48-year-old Romanian-Dutch citizen includes compensation of 3,720 euros to the store and another 1,529 to the insurer, amounts to be added to the price of the bottle.

The sentence takes into account the aggravating circumstance of recidivism of the accused, who has another process of this type pending, specifically that of the theft of another bottle of wine in a Geneva airport store, specifically, a Romanée-Conti worth 12,000 euros.

The ruling also refers to a mitigating factor, that of undue delays in the process, which are not the responsibility of the convicted person.

The sentence considers it proven that Dumitru, who has been in provisional prison since August of this year together with Priscila Lara Guevera (29 years old), the former Mexican and her alleged accomplice in the coup, committed the robbery in the Salamanca neighborhood on the 7th of May three years ago.

Around 3:55 p.m., he entered the establishment and "with obvious profit motive" stole a bottle of Balveine 40 Years Old brand whiskey from the area reserved for luxury drinks.

The bottle was never recovered - like those of Cáceres - but there is a graphic document that has been key in the process, that of the images collected by the store's security video cameras, where according to the sentence, his guilt is proven, together with the statements of the store workers, who identified the thief.

Dimitru entered the store with a wool cap and a long-sleeved feather, the sentence highlights, despite the fact that the events occurred in spring, according to the ruling.

At one point, and in an oversight of the clerk, the thief turned the surveillance camera to avoid being recognized.

However, the images show "with all clarity and precision" how a person wearing the same shirt as the accused took the bottle.

However, during the trial, both the defendant and his defense - which, as in the Atrio case, is exercised by lawyer Sylvia Córdoba - denied that he took the bottle without paying.

The lawyer, in statements to EL MUNDO, after the sentence was made public, underlines that "for me the video is not conclusive proof of guilt since the only thing that can be seen is a hand, which could perfectly be that of my client but because He was a regular customer of the store, as he himself has admitted, and yet all you see is a hand picking up a bottle from a shelf, and nothing else".

The lawyer emphasizes that in that video it is not seen at any time that the person who took the bottle kept it, "so he could perfectly have deposited it on another shelf next door, as is usually done if finally you are not interested the product, leave it somewhere else".

In this sense, she emphasizes that "the recordings of when he left through the door of the establishment were not seen either" and clarifies that "no other evidence was carried out".

In this way, and according to his assessment, the sentence that condemns his client to one year in prison seems "rocambolesque" to him because not even, he stresses, "the employee who attended him that day and who has identified him declared, so It seems incredible to him that he has been condemned".

For the lawyer, the penalty that I have inflicted on Dumitru "is the price he has to pay for being known."

During the trial, the three policemen who arrested him when he left the establishment with his daughter, three months later, in August, when he returned to the store as if nothing had happened before, did testify.

It was then that the agents received the notice from the manager of the premises, who identified him.

The convicted person was a regular customer of the store, because he had his address on a nearby street, specifically in General Díaz Porlier, while the store is located on José Ortega y Gasset street.

But during the trial, the accused -who testified by Zoom from the Cáceres prison- assured that he always paid for the bottles that he bought in said establishment.

Sylvia Córdoba also considers it important that "the very existence of the whiskey bottle has never been proven in court, because the image does not show which bottle that hand is holding."

Thus, the defendant's defense challenged during the trial a document provided by the complainant "because it was not valid to prove his identification, which was a kind of proforma invoice that was made months later and once the Prosecutor requested it to provide some document to prove its value".

In her opinion, the existence of such merchandise in the store has never been justified.

For all these reasons, the lawyer has announced that she will file an appeal against the conviction against her client.

Asked about this sentence that could affect her client in the face of the judicial process of the theft of the Atrio bottles, which have a value of more than 1.6 million euros, the lawyer from Madrid has assured that "a professional and impartial magistrate should never to get carried away by the media issue and stick to the procedure".

In addition, she emphasizes that this case occurred before the alleged robbery in the luxury restaurant in Cáceres.

The Robbery in Atrium

Regarding this case itself, Sylvia Córdoba has complained about the ways in which the judicial process is being carried out.

"For the first time in my life I have seen a sentence for costs to a defense for having appealed an order, which partially dismissed our request for some investigative steps that we had requested."

Specifically, for those measures that had been denied, he appealed and the Provincial Court of Cáceres has ordered his clients to pay costs for an amount of 800 euros.

"We are outraged, it is outrageous because in addition to being in prison for a theft, we are denied investigation proceedings, being the only party that is requesting them, since the prosecution has not requested any in this entire process, and on top of that it is not costing money to exercise our rights,"

Sylvia Córdoba has repeatedly requested the provisional release of her clients, but the Provincial Court of Cáceres considers that there are reasonable indications of "criminality and flight risk" after being detained by the Police last July on the Croatian border with Montenegro after a European Arrest and Surrender Order was issued as their whereabouts were unknown since they committed the robbery nine months earlier.

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