Nephew of María del Monte Charged for Assault on the Artist's Home

The Court of Instruction number 16 in Seville, investigating the assault and violent robbery at the chalet in Gines (Seville) belonging to singer María del Monte, has decided to proceed with the summary procedure against the artist's nephew, Antonio Tejado, along with ten others, for alleged crimes of robbery with violence and intimidation in an inhabited house, illegal detention, criminal organization, and assault.

According to the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), the judge has given the prosecution and the private accusation ten days to request the opening of an oral trial and present their indictment, if applicable.

It should be noted that the court summoned three individuals involved in the case to testify last Friday, March 7, after receiving an expanded report from the Civil Guard on the matter.

Specifically, through a new order issued on February 11, the court finally agreed in May 2024 to the last request for release made by the defense of Antonio Tejado, the artist's nephew and alleged intellectual author of the events; granting him provisional release without bail but with precautionary measures such as a ban on leaving the national territory, withdrawal of his passport, the obligation to appear in court on the 7th and 21st of each month, and a prohibition on communicating and approaching the victims within 500 meters.

Previously, the prosecution had supported this request for provisional release, but conditioned the measure on a deposit of 100,000 euros as bail.

This decision of provisional release also extended to the other five accused who, like Tejado, were then in provisional detention, specifically the Russian citizen Arseny G., José S.A., Antonio S.R., José Ramón M.M., and Miguel Angel G.T.

When ordering the imprisonment of Tejado and the other five accused, the investigating judge of the case, Juan Gutiérrez Casillas, highlighted the "extreme violence" to which the singer, her wife, and other victims of the assault were subjected.

According to the judge, from the investigations carried out by the Civil Guard, it is deduced that around 4:40 a.m. on August 25, 2023, the suspects Arseny G., José S.A., Antonio S.R., José Ramón M.M., and Miguel Ángel G.T. "entered the interior of the house" in Gines inhabited by the artist María del Monte "hooded with gloves and dark clothes, assaulting the perimeter fence and the exterior access door of the property from the rear to later open the main door of the house with force."

To this end, the suspect Antonio Tejado, the artist's nephew "and in concert with the rest of those involved, facilitated the possibility for the rest of the accused to enter the property through the back door without causing significant damage to the door and allowing easy entry into the interior," according to the investigation.

"Once inside the house, the suspects tied up and held the residents, beating, mistreating, and threatening them with death until the homeowner agreed to open the safe, from which the assailants took jewels and watches worth an initial estimate of a million euros and 14,500 euros in cash, among other items and belongings found inside the house," the judge noted.

He further stated that "in order to facilitate the robbery, Antonio Tejado communicated and informed the rest of the assailants of the moment when the homeowner was inside to coercively open the safe to steal items and cash, and, constituting himself as the intellectual author of the act, described the rooms of the property and facilitated access to the material and direct perpetrators of the violent robbery for illicit gain."

The judicial order thus specifies that María del Monte, her wife, and three other people inside the house "suffered the violent and coercive robbery with disproportionate use of physical force by the perpetrators, posing a great danger to the victims' integrity and causing great anxiety and fear."

The perpetrators, according to the judge's order, also counted on "third parties" like José Manuel S.R. and Josué M.d.T., "who, as beneficiaries of the stolen items, placed them on the illicit market at a profitable price for the perpetrators in a receiving activity that placed the goods on the black market."

It also explains that during the home searches of the accused, "items used for the commission of the act itself, such as a balaclava, lock cylinder extractor, walkie-talkie, set of lock picks, fake jackets of the national police and the Civil Guard, cash, fake police rotating light, GPS beacon device for vehicles, and in the case of Miguel Angel G.T., also narcotics consisting of almost two kilos of marijuana intended for drug trafficking," were seized.

"The described facts reveal great danger, the use of extreme violence against the victims, the use of dangerous means to achieve their ends, and a notorious disregard for any rights of the victims," warned the order, which accuses the defendants of alleged crimes of robbery with violence and intimidation in an inhabited house and use of a dangerous instrument, another alleged crime of illegal detention, a serious crime of assault, a possible additional crime of criminal organization, and an additional alleged crime against public health in the case of Miguel Angel G.T.

When appearing before the judge, Tejado, who agreed to answer questions from his defense lawyer, the investigating judge, and the case prosecutor, but not from the private accusation, denied having provided any information to the alleged executors of the robbery for its commission.

In this regard, he assured the judge that he has "no connection" with the detainees except in the case of Arseny G., the alleged leader of the criminal group with whom he has a "strictly sporting" relationship, as this other accused is a boxing figure who had asked him to train him personally, given his interest in the sport.

Regarding the prior phone call from Tejado to Arseny G. before the assault, the accused claimed not to remember the content of the conversation due to the time elapsed; adding regarding the calls to his aunt and homeowner, --also before the events and which the investigation connects with confirming that the artist would be at home and therefore someone who knew how to open the safe--; that he intended to deliver a puppy she had ordered from him.

According to his version of the matter, the artist had entrusted him with acquiring a puppy for her home and he, after obtaining it, was interested in delivering it because the dog had already been at his home for several days, with all that entails, and he also wanted to go on vacation for a few days.