Mexican politician controversially cleared of hiring prostitutes as ‘secretaries’

Cuauhtémoc Gutiérrez de la Torre was accused of hiring female staff in return for sexual favors.

Electoral authorities in Mexico City courted controversy this week by absolving a prominent member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of using public funds to run a prostitution network from his office.

An undercover investigation by MVS Noticias in April unearthed evidence that Cuauhtémoc Gutiérrez de la Torre, then the president of the PRI in Mexico City, had been hiring female staff in return for sexual favors.

But on August 25 the Electoral Institute of the Federal District (IEDF) ruled that there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing on Gutiérrez’s part.

Six of seven general council members voted to acquit the politician. The only dissenter was the president of the council, Diana Talavera, whose proposal for further investigation was rejected.

Critics denounce impunity

Reacting to the IEDF decision, José Antonio Crespo Mendoza, a historian and political analyst from the CIDE university, condemned the level of impunity in Mexico: “Our institutions do not hold violators of the law accountable. Accountability is an essential element of democracy … but we are lacking this essential capacity.”

Teresa Ulloa, the Mexican director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women in Latin America and the Caribbean – who said she had been harassed after presenting evidence against Gutiérrez – slammed the verdict as “shameful.”

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