José López, one of those convicted in the Vialidad case, turned himself in at Comodoro Py

José López, one of those convicted in the Vialidad case, appeared this morning at the Comodoro Py courts to be taken into custody.

The former Secretary of Public Works during the Kirchner administration was sentenced to six years in prison. Like the corrupt former president Cristina Kirchner, he requested to serve his sentence under house arrest, at his residence located in Santa Cruz, the province from which he traveled over the weekend to complete the corresponding judicial procedure.

Now, the court must decide whether to grant him house arrest or transfer him to a penitentiary facility.

López had been released in 2021 in the case for illicit enrichment, after being found with bags full of money in a convent in General Rodríguez.

In the Vialidad case file, he is part of the group of nine convicted individuals, in an investigation that was upheld last week by the Supreme Court of Justice, after rejecting the appeals filed against the ruling of the Chamber of Cassation, which had validated the sentence issued by Federal Oral Court No. 2 (TOF 2).

López arrived this Monday in the City of Buenos Aires from the province of Santa Cruz, with the aim of complying with the court order that required him to appear at the Comodoro Py courts, after the six-year prison sentence for the crime of fraudulent administration became final.

The Vialidad case

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence in the Vialidad case, in which the corrupt former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, businessman Lázaro Báez, and the former head of the National Highway Administration, Nelson Periotti, among other individuals involved, were also convicted.

As a result of that decision, Federal Oral Court No. 2 ordered that all of them must appear before the Comodoro Py courts within a maximum period of five business days.

López had been released in April 2021 in the case for illicit enrichment, after posting bail of 85 million pesos (187,393 pounds). Since then, he has remained in Río Gallegos. In the case for which he will now be placed under arrest again, he was prosecuted for the diversion of public works contracts in favor of companies linked to Lázaro Báez during the Kirchner administration.

In 2016, the former official was arrested after a video was released showing him attempting to hide bags containing nine million dollars in a convent in the town of General Rodríguez. Two years later, in 2018, he was included as a cooperating witness in the case known as the Notebooks of Bribes.