“I would be the shadiest corrupt person if I corrupted myself for 77,000 euros,” says José Luis Ábalos. Oh, shabbyness as a defense argument. It was only 77,000 euros, a pittance, a pittance. It was just a fine from the Treasury, Ayuso says of her boyfriend. Less than that: it was just a dental floss, another tacky thing. There were only four suits, Francisco Camps said, four shabby suits. It was just a crappy Louis Vuitton bag, said Rita Barberá. It was just a toilet brush, said Jaume Matas, and what could be more shabby than a toilet brush. They were just prostitutes, said Tito Berni, shabby even in the nickname. They were just brothels and cocaine, said the former general director of Andalusian Employment. They were just some envelopes, Bárcenas said. They were just black cards, those from Cajamadrid said. They were just garbage bags full of 500 bills, you have to be shabby to keep money like that. It was just a million hidden in an attic. They were just “whore dumpers.”
When the corrupt no longer has an escape, they always have one last bullet: shabby. Look at how shabby everything is, look at how little it is, look at what silliest gifts, look at what the nouveau riche’s whims are, look at how laughable everything is. Tackiness does not appear as a mitigating circumstance in the Penal Code, they do not reduce your sentence for tackiness, but it makes the other trial a little lighter, the public trial. Shame makes the corrupt more human. We see them with some indulgence, we can even empathize: look at them, if they are just as shabby as us, some shootnot like the white-collar corrupt people who will never be caught. We even had a laugh: Berlanguians! Look, Alvise, he just arrived but he already knows it, and he clings to the shabby thing when they catch him: what self-employed person hasn’t found themselves in the position of charging 100,000 euros without an invoice at some point? Without invoice and without working, even more shabby.
#crooks #corruption
