Trial over harassment of dermatologist Elisa Pinto: López Madrid and Villarejo before the courts
Madrid-based doctor Elisa Pinto received more than 70 anonymous threats in 2014 after refusing to remain silent. The trial against the businessman and the former police commissioner begins at the start of the year.
Twelve years of harassment and two physical assaults: the case that brings López Madrid and Villarejo to the dock
According to Ideal, at the beginning of this year the courts will try businessman Javier López Madrid and former police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo for a campaign of systematic harassment against Madrid-based dermatologist Elisa Pinto, whose origins date back to March 2012.
"We are at the door of your house, why don't you come down to keep us company?"; "You have a son in a cast. You should look after him well. At this age they suffer unexpected accidents"; "You know that the end of this will be that we kill you in due time". These are just three of more than 70 anonymous threatening messages that Pinto received on her telephone throughout 2014. Behind them, according to the case file, a network of power that sought her silence.
A distinguished patient and the beginning of a spiral
It all began in March 2012, when López Madrid—then board member of construction company OHL, first delegate of its parent company and son-in-law of the marquis Juan Miguel Villar-Mir—attended Pinto's hospital consulting room. He was 47 years old; she was 43. Both were at the pinnacle of their careers.
The doctor-patient relationship developed into what the case file describes as a "relationship of closeness", characterised by gifts, messages of a suggestive tone and constant telephone calls. When Pinto decided to consult with a psychologist and distance herself from López Madrid—fearful of his demanding behaviour—the executive did not accept the withdrawal. What followed was, according to those around him, an explicit demonstration of his "enormous power".
Villarejo enters the scene
In September 2013, López Madrid hired the private services of Villarejo, then an active police commissioner. The objective, according to the case file, was to silence the doctor, prevent her from filing a complaint or, if she did, prevent her criminal action from proceeding.
The appointment books seized from the commissioner following his arrest in November 2017—as part of Operation Tándem—document the visits López Madrid made to Villarejo's office on Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid. The case also involves two other retired police commissioners: Enrique García Castaño, alias 'el Gordo', then responsible for police operating systems, and José Luis Conde, of the Judicial Police.
Trap, complaint and first year of total harassment
On 10 December 2013, López Madrid and a lawyer who was Villarejo's partner presented themselves at Pinto's consulting room in what those around her describe as a trap. The operation failed. Ten days later, the doctor filed her first complaint at Chamartín police station.
2014 was a year of total harassment. In addition to threatening messages, surveillance and psychological pressure, on 13 January an individual broke into Pinto's vehicle and stabbed her in the left shoulder with a knife. The warning was unmistakable.
Villarejo also activated his media circuit to launch a public smear campaign against the doctor: from victim she came to be portrayed in certain media as a deranged harasser with a thirst for notoriety. "It was the beginning of her civil death," say those around her.
Second assault, this time in front of her son
On 10 April 2014 a second physical assault took place. An individual stabbed Pinto in her own vehicle, in the presence of her then ten-year-old son. The wound was to the abdomen. "He wants you to shut your mouth," the attacker told her before fleeing.
Pinto identified José Manuel Villarejo as the perpetrator of that assault on two occasions during a photographic line-up. The commissioner presented evidence that, according to the case file, proved false in order to distance himself from the episode.
The police chief who dared to act
Pinto's complaint reached police chief Jaime Barrado, who in May 2015 authorised the identification line-up that pointed to his colleague. That decision cost him a confrontation with the Villarejo faction within the police hierarchy. According to reporting by El Diario.es this week, Barrado recently received an attempted bribe to buy his silence, a fact he has reported to the Civil Guard.
The case was then passed to inspector Alberto Carba—known years later for the arrest of music producer Nacho Cano—who according to those around the doctor drew up a report full of inaccuracies in order to exonerate Villarejo, incriminate Pinto for false reporting and discredit the testimony of her son, an eyewitness to the second assault.
The businessman who today chairs boards
López Madrid, currently board member of the Villar-Mir Group—owner of companies such as Ferroglobe or Fertiberia—reported Pinto to the Prosecution Service for Minors in January 2016, when the case had already been amplified by journalists from Villarejo's circle.
The aftereffects of these twelve years of harassment, according to those around the doctor, remain visible in her face. Elisa Pinto is the daughter of a Sephardic Jew born in Tetuán and naturalised as Spanish in 1968. A life built with effort that, from that 2012 consultation onwards, was subjected to what the case file describes as an operation of personal destruction orchestrated from the highest spheres of economic and police power.
Source: Ideal