Elba Ester Gordillo
Elba Esther Gordillo Morales (Comitán, Chiapas, February 6, 1945) also known as La Maestra is a Mexican politician and trade unionist.. From 1989 to 2013 she held the presidency of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE). She was three times a federal deputy and senator for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), of which she was also General Secretary from 2002 to 2005. Before its dissolution, she was also one of the leaders of the New Alliance Party.
A controversial figure in Mexican politics, from 2013 to 2018 Gordillo faced legal proceedings for money laundering and organized crime, and was imprisoned in the Tepepan Women's Prison. She was kept under house arrest until August 2018, when according to reports from her lawyer Marco Antonio del Toro, she was released by a judge of the First Unitary Court.
Political career
From his native state of Chiapas, Gordillo moved to Nezahualcóyotl, State of Mexico, where in 1970 he joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) with the support of Carlos Jonguitud Barrios, leader of the group «Revolutionary Vanguard of the Teachers». On September 22, 1972, backed by the then President of Mexico Luis Echeverría Álvarez, Jonguitud Barrios removed Jesús Robles Martínez and Manuel Sánchez Vite —then governor of Hidalgo and former president of the PRI, respectively— from the union leadership. Under the new leadership, Gordillo held the Secretary of Labor and Conflicts of the union until 1973 and the General Secretary of the Delegation in Nezahualcóyotl from 1973 to 1975. In 1977 she became General Secretary of Section 36 of the SNTE, corresponding to the State of Mexico, and the same year she is elected federal deputy to the LI Legislature, from 1979 to 1982, representing the 26th district of the State of Mexico with head in Nezahualcóyotl.
From 1980 to 1983, Gordillo again held positions in the union, as Secretary of Labor and Conflicts in Preschool Education, and from 1983 to 1986, as Secretary of Finance. In 1985 she was elected for the second time as a federal deputy, to the LIII Legislature, which concluded in 1988, representing the 2nd district of the Federal District. At that time, the district included in its territory the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Housing Unit, seriously affected by the 1985 Mexico Earthquake. In her capacity as a deputy, Gordillo intervened so that the residents accepted the compensation conditions proposed by the government, which were rejected. During the same legislature, he served as the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies during the month of September 1987 and he was responsible for responding to the fifth government report of the then President of Mexico Miguel de la Madrid.
SNTE Presidency
Gordillo assumed the presidency of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) on April 24, 1989, after the resignation of Carlos Jonguitud Barrios. He held the position until February 26, 2013. In 2008 he began the & #34;Alliance for the Quality of Education", where it proposes to the federal government to create the National Entrance Exam for the Ministry of Public Education, in order to eliminate the sale of teaching positions.
During this period, she also held the position of general secretary of the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (1996-2002) and general secretary of the National Executive Committee of the PRI (2002-2005). Together with Roberto Madrazo, she ran for the PRI's national leadership for the period 2002-2006, where Madrazo was installed as national president and Gordillo as general secretary of the party. She held positions as senator and representative. She was coordinator of the PRI bench of deputies and delegate in the Federal District. She was a deputy for the 2003-2006 Legislative period, although after her swearing-in, Lilia Aragón replaced her in office.
Around the 2006 federal elections, he had a political break with Madrazo that led to a series of public confrontations. Gordillo was dismissed from the coordination of the PRI bench in the Chamber of Deputies in 2003 and Madrazo sought to remove her from the general secretariat in 2005. After the beginning of Madrazo's presidential candidacy, it would correspond to Gordillo to occupy the presidency of the PRI, but faced with Madrazo's refusal, the PRI leadership appointed Mariano Palacios Alcocer as president. Gordillo accused Madrazo of taking over the party, as well as trying to assassinate her and negotiate, along with Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the government of Vicente Fox, tax and energy reforms aimed at privatization.
In 2005, the PRI accused Gordillo of doing politics in another party (Nueva Alianza) and although he declared himself a PRI member, he did not deny his relations. Legal steps were taken to have him expelled from the PRI On July 13, 2006, the Party Justice Commission expelled Gordillo from the party; a fact rejected by party figures, among them the then governor of Sonora Eduardo Bours. On July 2, 2006, he had a conversation with the then governor of Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernández Flores, to convince him to move the government machinery to decant in favor of the PAN in the 2006 federal elections.
Arrest
On February 26, 2013, Gordillo was detained at the Adolfo López Mateos International Airport in Toluca de Lerdo, State of Mexico, by elements of the Attorney General's Office for the crime of operating with resources of illegal origin; entering the Santa Martha Acatitla Women's Prison the same day. On Monday, March 4, 2013, the Sixth Judge in Criminal Matters issued Gordillo and his co-defendants a formal prison order. Along with Gordillo, four other people were accused, Isaías Gallardo, José Manuel Díaz, Nora Ugarte and Erick Rodríguez.
Amparo
On September 24, 2013, Francisco Javier Sarabia, Federal Judge of the Fourth District Court in Amparo Matters of the First Circuit, granted an amparo to Elba Esther Gordillo Morales and co-defendants, considering that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) misfounded the file and violated "the right to due process." This amparo does not mean that the accused should be issued a release order, but that a new order of formal imprisonment should be issued.[citation required]
On October 3, 2013, the PGR filed an appeal before the aforementioned court, seeking to reverse the amparo action. Marco Antonio del Toro Carazo, Gordillo's lawyer, stated that he was "about three months away" of a final resolution of the amparo and Elba Esther Gordillo Morales will be released from charge.[citation required]
The First Collegiate Court in Criminal Matters of the First Circuit exonerated the ex-teacher leader, Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, from the crime of tax evasion for 4.3 million pesos, thereby reducing the charges against her.[citation required]
In an interview for El Financiero, defense attorney Marco del Toro Carazo, states that the ruling is due to different inconsistencies in the evidence presented by the Attorney General's Office (PGR). The lawyer reported that Gordillo would continue in prison, because there are two trials, and two more preliminary investigations for tax fraud, which are suspended, "what follows is to wait this week for the resolution of the Supreme Court for what It's up to house arrest, which although it's important for the teacher, we seek to prove her innocence', he concluded.
New arrest warrant and new arrest warrant
On October 8, 2013, the PGR obtained an arrest warrant against Gordillo for the crime of tax evasion, this charge was added to two previous ones: operations with resources of illicit origin and organized crime. The following day the Federal Police complied with it, as a formality, because Gordillo had been confined since February 2013 in the Women's Center for Social Readaptation of Santa Martha Acatitla.
On the night of October 11, 2013, on the night of October 11, 2013, the 14th District Court for Criminal Matters issued another formal arrest warrant against Elba Esther Gordillo, considering that there were elements to initiate a trial against her, for the crime of tax fraud equivalent to $2,190,000 pesos of which the PGR accused her.
Corruption
As president of the SNTE, Gordillo was accused numerous times of influence peddling in the Ministry of Public Education. Gordillo has also been singled out for purchases whose value exceeds her income as a politician and union president. Between March 2009 and January 2012, she spent $2.1 million at a Neiman Marcus store in San Diego, California, as well as as other expenses in luxury items Hermès and Chanel, at least seventeen works of art, a private jet and plastic surgeries. According to El Universal, during his presidency of the union he acquired ten properties in United States, which include a house in San Diego valued at $1.7 million and another in Coronado, California valued at $4.7 million. In 2008, he purchased 59 Hummer vehicles for his SNTE assistants. In 2013, she was named by Forbes magazine as one of the "10 most corrupt Mexicans".
According to The Guardian, Gordillo created the New Alliance party which became "notorious for obtaining privileges and key appointments in exchange for support in elections". former President Felipe Calderón in winning his narrow victory during the 2006 federal elections, as part of an agreement that allowed him to grant positions to collaborators in the Calderón government.
On February 26, 2013, Gordillo was arrested on corruption charges by Mexican authorities while getting off a private jet at the Toluca Airport. She was arrested for the alleged embezzlement of $2 billion pesos (̰̰156.81 million dollars or 119.24 million euros) from the SNTE, according to Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam.Gordillo was also accused of depositing large sums of money in bank accounts in Switzerland. Karam also pointed to questionable expenses, such as maintenance and rental of a hangar and planes, plastic surgeries and personal luxuries. Prosecutors argue that she would not have been able to make these purchases on her salary ($31,398 pesos or $2,459 euros per month). She has also been charged with embezzlement and involvement in organized crime. For her defense, Gordillo hired criminal lawyer Marco Antonio del Toro Carazo, who also defended union leader Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.
Release
On August 8, 2018, she was acquitted of the crimes of money laundering and organized crime, according to her lawyer, Marco Antonio del Toro. Judge Miguel Ángel Aguilar López, head of the first unitary criminal court in Mexico City, declared as admissible an incident of dismissal or cancellation of the process, considering that the evidence accumulated in the process did not prove Gordillo's responsibility.