Madrid (EFE).- The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of 28 years and two months in prison for the San Sebastian photographer Kote Cabezudo for sexual assault, abuse and child pornography against seven models in Guipúzcoa.
The Criminal Chamber has handed down a sentence that rejects the photographer’s appeal against the resolution of the Provincial Court of Guipúzcoa that convicted him of one crime of sexual assault, another of sexual abuse, six of child pornography and two of fraud.
In addition, the court ratifies the payment of compensation of 116,000 euros to the victims and recalls that the maximum effective term in prison is 20 years.
The judgment explains that the application of the “only yes is yes” law is not appropriate in this case, which, in any case, would be innocuous, since even with the reductions interested by the convicted person, his maximum compliance in a penitentiary center would not vary.
In his appeal, the photographer denied the existence of the crime of child pornography, alleging that the parents of the models knew about his professional work given his social recognition in San Sebastián, and that, with his express and prior consent, the photographs were taken from a artistic point of view and without any sexual purpose, but merely sensual and aesthetic.
The crimes that lead photographer Kote Cabezudo to prison: child pornography, assaults and sexual abuse
But the court responds that the photographs, not only nudes but more intimate close-ups, directly affect the definition of child pornography.
“The primarily sexual purpose blurs any professional or artistic connotation,” adds the Chamber.
This purpose is also ratified, the Chamber specifies, when similar photos are found on web pages run by the defendant with the warning: “Legal notice: All models are over 18 years old.”
The Chamber also considers accredited the sexual assault on one of the victims to whom he recorded videos and took photographs while carrying out sexual practices.
It indicates that “whether contracted or not, manifested his position to the sexual relationship even though he initially consented, to ignore it, with acts of force overcoming the physical pressure with which he tried to remove it, even though he was the director of the filming and that would have consented to the acts, does not distort the sexual assault that is the object of the condemnation”.
Another of the sexual abuses, the sentence indicates, was suffered by another model photographed nude to whom the photographer inserted his fingers into her genitals.
“It is true that the model continued to go to the photo sessions, but she also showed her opposition to these touching, verbally and materially. Neither did they previously agree to this introduction of fingers, nor can it be understood that she consented to it, but rather that she showed her opposition to that practice, despite which, the defendant carried it out ”, the magistrates conclude.