Court upholds three-year prison sentence for Guayaquil Mayor Aquiles Alvarez in Grillete case
The criminal court in Guayas confirmed the three-year prison sentence against the mayor of Guayaquil in the Grillete case, rejecting the defence's nullity petition.
Court upholds three-year sentence against Guayaquil mayor in Grillete case
The criminal court of the Provincial Court of Justice of Guayas rejected as inadmissible the nullity petition presented by the defence of the mayor of Guayaquil, Aquiles Alvarez, according to eluniverso.com. The ruling, issued in writing on 2 October 2026, confirms the three-year prison sentence imposed on the mayor as direct perpetrator of the crime of non-compliance with a lawful order from a competent authority in the so-called Grillete case.
The judges Rosario Franco Jaramillo—rapporteur—, Demóstenes Díaz Ruilova and Olga Martina Aguilar Romero clarified that the corrections and clarifications requested do not modify the meaning or content of the ruling of 16 September, the date on which the same court denied the appeal against the first-instance sentence against Alvarez.
The defence's argument
Defence lawyer Julio César Cueva presented the nullity petition in a written submission signed on 23 September and uploaded to the system on 29 of the same month. Cueva argued that judge Aguilar Romero, who replaced Carmen Vázquez Rodríguez at the hearing on 16 September, participated that same day in another hearing in a criminal murder case. According to the defence, this action would have violated the principles of immediacy, effective judicial protection, due process and the right to a defence. The court rejected that argument and also responded to the clarification and amplification application also submitted by Cueva in the same document.
Accumulated sentences and current situation
Alvarez was sentenced on 3 August to three years in prison for the removal of the electronic tag he was wearing as a precautionary measure in the Triple A case. In that same case, a first-instance sentence also condemned him to six years and eight months for illegal storage, transport, packaging, marketing or distribution of products derived from hydrocarbons.
Along with the custodial sentence, the court ordered payment of a fine equivalent to ten unified basic salaries—$4,820—, public apologies and publication of the ruling's operative part in a newspaper of national circulation.
The mayor is currently serving the sentences from the Grillete and Triple A cases at the Encuentro Prison in Santa Elena. In parallel, he faces a criminal proceeding for money laundering being investigated in the so-called Goleada case.
Source: Google News EC — Guayaquil