Santiago's 4th Guarantee Court rescheduled the preparatory hearing for the oral trial of lawyer Luis Hermosilla and other defendants in the Audio-Factop case for Monday, March 1, 2027. The decision was made this Tuesday, according to La Tercera.
According to CNN Chile, the hearing was scheduled for 9:00 and was expected to involve several consecutive sessions. The preparatory hearing is the stage at which the court reviews the charges, determines which evidence will be presented and prepares the case for trial. The defendants have already been charged but have not been tried or convicted.
During the session, the court rejected three requests from Hermosilla's defense. It declined to discuss the legality of the recording that gave rise to the case, finding that this was not the appropriate stage to do so. It also refused to separate the cases, finding that combining them falls within the authority of the Public Prosecutor's Office, and rejected the request to return the lawyer's electronic devices to his defense.
The Public Prosecutor's Office (the prosecution) is seeking 17 years in prison for Hermosilla. It is seeking 20 and 14 years for brothers Daniel and Ariel Sauer, respectively. It is seeking 18 years for María Leonarda Villalobos and 10 years and one day for businessman Antonio Jalaff.
For Luis Flores, the former manager of STF Capital, one of the Sauer brothers' companies, prosecutors requested 12 years. CNN Chile describes him as the defendant with the least involvement. The court scheduled an abbreviated procedure hearing for January 28, 2027, for Flores and Jalaff, a process in which the defendant accepts the facts in exchange for shorter proceedings and, generally, a lighter sentence.
The case began in November 2023 with the leak of a recording lasting more than 20 minutes in which payments of bribes to officials at the Internal Revenue Service (SII) and the Financial Market Commission (CMF) were discussed. According to CNN Chile journalist Juan Cristóbal Chateau, the investigation has three strands.
The first, Factop, concerns SII and CMF inspections of the Sauer brothers' companies over an alleged "cycling" of invoices containing false information to give the appearance of greater assets and attract clients. The second is the recording itself, which mentioned a "black box" for paying bribes.
The third strand concerns Parque Capital, a real estate project of Grupo Patio. According to prosecutors, its approval process allegedly moved very quickly following interventions with the Metropolitan Housing and Urban Development Service (Serviu).
The sources consulted do not report the reason for the postponement or the case number (RIT or RUC). They also do not include statements from prosecutors about possible delaying tactics by the defense teams. The next date in the case is January 28, 2027, with the abbreviated procedure hearing for Jalaff and Flores.
