Truth be told: Elba Ester Gordillo never spent a day behind bars in 5.5 years of being "imprisoned", here's how

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat  from Reforma 

Even by Mexico's high level of corruption, the "justice" for the Mexican elite is stunning....read to the end

Elba Ester: History of  her arrest and charges

In addition to never being in a cell, in five years Gordillo won each of three amparo trials, obtained a house arrest, got the electronic bracelet removed, and prevented federal agents from searching her apartment.

February 26, 2013

Elba Esther Gordillo is arrested at the Toluca International Airport, for an arrest warrant charging organized crime, money laundering and diversion of resources from the SNTE (Teachers Union). She is admitted to Santa Martha Acatitla; but  as soon as she arrived, she was taken to the prison's medical service, where she spent that night and the next.

February 27, 2013

In a message transmitted by national media, President Enrique Peña Nieto affirms that "nobody is above the law".

March 1, 2013

In fact the founder of the New Alliance Party was never in a cell because of a medical recommendation, on March 1 she was transferred to the Medical Tower of Tepepan prison , to receive specialized care for 13 ailments, including kidney failure, hypertension, hepatitis C, diverticula in the colon, a cyst in the pancreas, sprains of grade one in the ankles and glaucoma in the hepato-pulmonary level.

 March 4th, 2013

A judge issues a formal prison sentence for organized crime and laundering.

Marco Antonio del Toro, lawyer for Elba Esther Gordillo, exits the María José Roma Hospital.

November 18, 2015

By judicial order, Gordillo leaves the Penitentiary Center and was taken to a hospital in Interlomas, where she undergoes surgery.

Later, she went to the public hospital of Xoco, then to María José Roma in Colonia Roma and after the tremor of September 19, 2017, to the MediAccess Clinic in Las Lomas de Chapultepec.

 December 14, 2017

The former leader of the SNTE manages the house arrest,  thanks to the PGR refusal to challenge a amparo request promoted by Gordillo.

The benefit, intended for people over 70 years of age, was granted 2 years and 10 months after litigation in court to obtain it.

A federal Magistrate opinion was that Gordillo did not represent a flight risk and that house arrest  had been denied to her by retroactively applying a law that was not in force when the events of which she was accused occurred.  

In the original request, Gordillo asked to move to his apartment of 700 square meters at the Golf Club Bosques de Santa Fe, the PGR determined that another of her property in Polanco was the one that met the appropriate security measures.

December 16, 2017

At 2:00 in the morning, Gordillo is transferred from the MediAccess Clinic in Lomas de Chapultepec (where she was since September 19) to her penthouse in the building of Calle Galileo 7, in Polanco, escorted by a van and a PGR vehicle.

Security measures, were established by the court, for a permanent physical surveillance of agents from the Federal Ministerial Police, set at least 2 kilometers around the 12-story residential tower where she would reside. The absolute prohibition to leave the property, and the restriction of her telecommunications, except with persons previously authorized by the judge, in addition to the use of an electronic bracelet.

A dozen agents, uniformed and others in civilian clothes, were deployed in nearby streets, such as Avenida Campos Elíseos, Aristóteles, Newton and Temístocles.

The judge also ordered Gordillo to relinquish passports, visas and passports and imposed a limited visit control on relatives, doctors and lawyers previously registered before the judicial authority, and restricted the use of computer or television.

December 23, 2017

A week after being held in house arrest, a federal judge ordered the removal of the electronic bracelet, because of the stress she says it caused her.

February 11, 2018

Gordillo presents a legal recourse for the federal judge Alejandro Caballero Vértiz to dismiss or dismiss his trial for money laundering (of more thousand 978 million pesos) and organized crime, the only process that kept her deprived of her freedom.

 

Penthouse of house arrest

 February 2018

At the request of the PGR, Judge Alejandro Caballero restricts the visits received by the former president of the SNTE, and forbade her to communicate by telephone or electronically with people who were not judicially authorized. In addition, he gave a period of 24 hours to deliver the name, official identification and proof of address of her visitors, as well as the nature in which they would come to see it.

Likewise, it should specify the means by which she would communicate with authorized persons.

Caballero, nevertheless, did  not replace the electronic bracelet,  as requested by the PGR.

The Attorney General's Office requested these measures when considering that Gordillo used the house arrest as "office of dispatch".

The teacher did not turn in this list and resorted to amparo, however, she was denied a  suspension of said restrictions.

Gordillo's lawyer described the measures dictated by Judge Caballero retaliation against the teacher,  as a punishment for the support that Fernando González Sánchez and René Fujiwara, Gordillo's son-in-law and nephew, provided to Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The defense of the teacher,  filed a complaint before a collegiate court  challenging  the refusal of the judge of protection to temporarily suspend the restrictions ordered by Judge Caballero.

May 2018

The former leader obtains an injunction against the authorization given by a federal court for the PGR to conduct an inspection of her apartment. The Attorney General's Office requested the entry of its agents as part of the review of the precautionary measures handed down to Gordillo.

Since February, the federal agency first raised with a judge his suspicion that the teacher was leaving the property, because since she was granted house arrest, the agents had not been able to inspect or rule out whether the apartment has access to another adjoining apartment that could be used for exiting the premises .

Elements of the Federal Ministerial Police (PFM) warned that they spent prolonged periods without having visual contact with the processed and the fact that up to 10 people came to visit her could only be a distraction.

August 7, 2018

A judge definitively cancels the process against the former leader of the SNTE for organized crime and laundering of 1,978 million pesos, which was her last trial, so she is set free.  

She was previously acquitted of three cases of tax fraud.

From her position in the teachers' union and her continuous political lobbying,  Gordillo Morales had close relationships with  governors, legislators and presidents, from Vicente Fox, Calderon and Pena Nieto.