A federal court headed by magistrate Jaime Santana Turral will resolve next Friday a protection appeal in review to confirm or revoke the criminal process against the former PRI mayor of Toluca, Raymundo Martínez Carbajal, who is currently linked to a criminal process for the crime of express kidnapping to the detriment of his ex-wife, Viridiana 'N' and his former father-in-law.
After being arrested on January 18, 2024 for this crime, Martínez Carbajal obtained in March of the same year a local judge from the State of Mexico to allow him to continue his criminal process in freedom while awaiting a possible trial, arguing that it was not necessary to keep him in prison. Subsequently, in April 2024, he was denounced by the parties of the 'Va por México' alliance for joining the electoral campaign of Morena, despite the allegations against him.
According to leaders of PAN, PRI, and PRD, Martínez Carbajal diverted public resources while he was mayor of Toluca and accused that his release in the criminal process for the crime of express kidnapping was in exchange for supporting the Morena presidential campaign in 2024. Paradoxically, one of those responsible for resolving his case is magistrate Jaime Santana, a former collaborator of ex-minister Arturo Zaldívar, also close to the Morena government. Santana Turral is not only responsible for drafting the sentence project related to the former mayor of Toluca, but he is also the only magistrate with appointment in the current integration of the Fourth Collegiate Court in Criminal Matters of the State of Mexico, due to the fact that there are two secretaries of agreements acting as magistrates, due to resignations and early retirements caused by judicial reform.
Santana Turral's closeness with ex-minister Arturo Zaldívar began in 2010 when he was Secretary of Study and Account in his presentation. In 2013 he became a judge through an internal competitive exam, and from 2018 he held the position of federal magistrate. In 2019, with Zaldívar's arrival at the presidency of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, magistrate Jaime Santana Turral was appointed executive secretary of the Discipline Commission in the Federal Judicial Council (CJF), a position that was allegedly used to pressure judges and magistrates between 2019 and 2023.
Magistrate Jaime Santana Turral is also one of the qualified candidates deemed suitable by the Executive Power Evaluation Committee to compete for a seat in the Judicial Discipline Tribunal (TDJ), which will be responsible for investigating and pursuing corruption in the Judiciary of the Federation. Ex-minister Zaldívar is now the General Coordinator of Politics and Government of the Presidency of the Republic and a member of the Executive Power Evaluation Committee for the judicial election next June, so Santana Turral had the approval of his former boss to be listed among the candidates.
Additionally, the magistrate was mentioned in the complaint presented against several former collaborators of Arturo Zaldívar and his closest circle before the Federal Judicial Council (CJF) for pressures and alleged extortions against judges and magistrates in significant cases affecting the government of the self-proclaimed Fourth Transformation. According to the complaint file, Santana Turral's name was used by the then Technical Secretary of the CJF, Carlos Antonio Alpízar Salazar, to pressure magistrate Isabel Cristina Porras Odriozola, head of the Third Unit Court in Criminal Matters of Mexico City, in one of the criminal litigations related to the former director of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya.
In November of last year, before he was arrested and opposition parties came to his defense, Raymundo Martínez Carbajal was publicly denounced by what was then his wife for the crime of express kidnapping, as well as for sexual, physical, and psychological violence. In a video shared on her social networks, the former president of the DIF of Toluca, Viridiana Rodríguez, publicly denounced her ex-husband. According to Rodríguez, since she decided to separate from the municipal president and denounce him for family violence, she has suffered intimidation and acts of retaliation, one of which would be the illegal detention of her father. 'I lived 12 years of physical, emotional, and sexual violence. A nightmare, but today I live in a hell that began to burn on April 12, with the illegal detention of my father,' she stated in the video. According to her testimony, her father's detention was carried out by the municipal police of Toluca, without an arrest warrant. This is the express kidnapping for which Martínez Carbajal is charged.
