Former Entre Ríos governor Sergio Urribarri detained to begin corruption sentence

Former Entre Ríos governor Sergio Urribarri was detained after Argentina’s Supreme Court confirmed his eight-year prison sentence for corruption-related offenses in five provincial cases.

The order also covered Pedro Ángel Báez, the former minister of Culture and Communication, and Juan Pablo Aguilera, Urribarri’s brother-in-law and former president of the Entre Ríos branch of the Justicialist Party. Both received six-and-a-half-year sentences and bans on holding public office.

Urribarri, Aguilera and Báez spent the night at the Paraná detention facility and were due to be transferred to Penal Unit No. 1 in the provincial capital. Urribarri was detained around 2 a.m. Saturday, while Báez entered the facility shortly before 10 p.m., followed by Aguilera.

The Supreme Court finalized Urribarri’s sentence on Thursday after Justices Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz and Ricardo Lorenzetti rejected his extraordinary appeal as inadmissible. The other defendants’ appeals also failed. Urribarri, who served two terms as governor and later became Argentina’s ambassador to Israel, is barred from public office under the sentence.

The case concerned public advertising contracts that investigators said Urribarri directed toward private interests. Prosecutors also examined a beachside facility in Mar del Plata in 2015 and promotional spots broadcast during the Mercosur Summit in Paraná in December 2014, which were linked to his planned 2015 presidential bid. Urribarri served as governor from December 2007 to December 2015 and resigned as ambassador in May 2022 after his conviction.