One of the last detainees in the case of Johana Ramallo turned out to be Celia Noemi Gimeneza key witness in the disappearance of Miguel Bru that occurred in 1993. The woman, who is accused of being one of the “administrators” of the “Red zone” La Plata for the alleged collection of “tolls” from the other sex workers, rejects the accusations against her and The suspicion slips that his current prosecution is “a change” for his contribution to solving, three decades ago, the crime of journalism student Miguel Bru, for which four police officers from the Ninth Police Station in La Plata were convicted.
“Here is a dark hand. In the red zone, everyone knows who I am because I worked there since I was 14 years old and now they are denouncing me girls who work with the Ninth,” Giménez defended himself in exclusive dialogue with 0221.com.ar.
Last December, the head of Federal Court No. 1 of La Plata, Alejo Ramos Padilla ordered her arrest after prosecuting her within the framework of the legal case (No. 76789/2017) in which an attempt is made to unravel the murder of the young Johana Ramallo whose dismembered body was found in mid-2018 after having been missing since July of the year former.
Giménez, whom everyone knows as “the black”, he frequented for more than four decades in the red zone, from where, according to what he maintains, he withdrew about five years ago, shortly after the crime of Johana, whom he says he met only by crossing it in the same place where both they shared the work.
The investigation, in which the Federal Prosecutor’s Office No. 1, in charge of william ferraraand the Specialized Fiscal Unit for Violence against Women (UFEM), headed by Mariela Labozzetta, took a turn at the beginning of last year since it was left in the hands of Ramos Padilla. The magistrate was inclined to strengthen the approach with gender perspective. Thus, after studying the case from the new perspective, taking statements from witnesses and carrying out some raids, the investigators came to the conclusion that the case “It can be registered under the hypothesis of femicide in a sexual context and organized crime.” The investigations crossed information from an old file opened in the Buenos Aires justice (IPP No. 06-00-018375/00) in which concurrent crimes were being investigated in the red zone of La Plata.
One of the first consequences of this new stage of the investigation resulted in the arrest, last June, of Carlos Omar “Cabezón” Rodríguez, pointed out as a pimp and drug facilitator. Shortly after the accusations reached other actors among which were Celia Andreza Benítez, Federico Hernán D` Uva Razzari, Hernán Rubén García and Erika Paola Garraza, Carlos Espinosa Linares, Mirko Galarza Senio, Valentina León, Andrea Camila Barreto and Nicole Guerra Guerrero. The last to be arrested was Celia Giménez, who, together with other women identified as “the old women”, is credited with demanding from the rest of the sex workers “a payment for remaining in that space (the red zone) offering sexual services, which He was paid with the money produced from the sex trade”, according to the file accessed by this medium.
“They say that I am the administrator of the red zone and I have been working there since I was 14 years old and I have never charged the other girls that work. They all know me and they know that I never managed anything but now they accuse me with undercover witnesses who for me are linked to the Ninth Police Station and with the story of Bru”, indicated the woman who, after being arrested, suffered a health problem and was hospitalized for several weeks after which she was granted prison. domiciliary
Giménez testified in court that he treated Johana Ramallo very briefly for working in the same place and that the only thing he knew about her is that she had been taken by another girl who was a minor at the time and who appears in the file although it never turned out. accused. As revealed by the interviewee, that person would have stated in front of others that they were sorry for what she happened to Johana, although that clue would not have been deepened.
“They persecute me because someone with a confidential identity said that I charged in 2016 and 2017 at the corner of 122 and 72. And I told the judge that this is false because there was never a stop there because the Patronato de Liberados is there and there is a permanent police patrol,” La Negra explained, while saying that, “when they took my statement I reminded them of everything that happened with the Bru case and I said that I only believe in the Supreme Court. At that time my fear was that they would throw drugs or a weapon at me, that they would charge my children or something would happen to me and the truth now seems that these things are happening”.
“This all sounds dirty to me. They want to tell me that I have to do with human trafficking and I don’t know how many other things and I have no criminal record and just by asking they realize who I am and how I have acted all my life. The only thing I am is the oldest of all, I worked there since I was 14 years old. In the case there are other women who accuse them of beating them and taking money from the girls. I never did something like that. I was never an administrator of anything as it appeared in the media and far from taking advantage of my colleagues, I have always defended them,” said Giménez who, it is presumed, will be investigated again in February when the fair ends “I want them to give me an oral trial and public so that everyone can hear what I say and ask me what they want because I have nothing to hide,” he concluded.
THE OLD WOMEN
In the case followed by Johana’s crime, several women, including Celia Giménez, are mentioned as “the old women” who exercised “control of the corners” where sexual services were offered and, “by using of violence demanded money from younger sex workers, in the jargon called “cobra de plaza”, especially if they were newcomers, as a condition of allowing them to work.
According to the records of the case, “Celia Giménez is the oldest in the group of “old women” and one of the oldest, with more than 28 years working in the “red zone.” She began working as a prostitute at a time when women “stopped” on 8th Street. He had several sons and daughters, one of whom also worked as a prostitute.”.
According to the researchers, the possibility of offering sex in “the corners was managed with the body and by force or by paying an amount that conformed to whoever exercised control there. That worked that way for trans women too, albeit in a kind of parallel administration. As Giménez pointed out, the testimonies that most compromise her were made under “identity reservation”
Regarding the possible police participation in the network of the red zone of La Plata, it is indicated that although “indicative testimony was gathered indicating that the Ninth Police Station acted by administering or managing this complex criminal network, which could thus have formed an essential link for this criminal operation, without which its survival would not have been possible”, it is clarified that, in reality, So far “there is no accusation nor evidence that allows a specific degree of participation of the authorities to be identified that could have contributed to the configuration of this enclave plagued by violence and multiple vulnerabilities, where the commercialization of narcotics and the abuse and economic exploitation of sex workers took place for years.”
In 1995, the testimony of Celia Giménez pointing out that numeraries from the Ninth Police Station were responsible for the death and disappearance of Bru implied a break in the entire case that ended with the clarification of what happened, the removal and dismissal of the first judge in the case, Amilcar Varaand the conviction of the uniformed men in an oral trial held in 1999.
