María Julia Alsogaray (October 8, 1942 – September 24, 2017) was an Argentine politician and engineer convicted in 2004 for financial crimes against the state.

Biography

The second of three children of socialite Edith Gay and

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

politician Álvaro Alsogaray, she was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

and earned a degree in

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

at the Catholic University of Argentina in 1969. She was elected to Congress in

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

on her father's ticket, the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCeDé), and became an outspoken defender of

free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...

s during the presidency of

Raúl Alfonsín Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (12 March 1927 – 31 March 2009) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989. He was the first democratically elected president after more than ...

. She married Francisco Erize, and had two sons. The UCeDé became a close ally of Justicialist Party nominee Carlos Menem after the 1989 election (in which Menem ran as a

populist Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term develop ...

), and Alsogaray was appointed to head the

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

s of the

ENTel The ''Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones'' (National Telecommunications Enterprise, or ENTel) was an Argentine state owned company which had the monopoly on public telecommunications in the country until its privatization in 1990. Overview It ...

state phone company in 1990 and of the Somisa state steel works in 1991. This post earned Alsogaray disapproval when reports emerged that ENTel land valued at US$180 million was gifted to its buyers; and later, when Somisa was sold to

Techint Techint is an Argentine conglomerate founded in Milan in 1945 by Italian industrialist Agostino Rocca and headquartered in Milan (Italy) and Buenos Aires (Argentina). As of 2019 the Techint Group is composed of six main companies in the followin ...

in 1992 for US$152 million - one seventh the book value Jorge Triaca, her predecessor at Somisa, had estimated. Her personal life also attracted controversy following a July 1990 photo shoot for '' Noticias'', Argentina's leading news magazine. The suggestive photo spread was accompanied by an interview in which her relationship with the recently divorced President Menem was discussed. Alsogaray was appointed Secretary of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development (environment) in November 1991, something she attributed in a '' Clarín'' interview at the time to the ''"trust the President has deposited in me."'' Alsogaray's tenure at Environment Secretariat, which was elevated to a cabinet-level post by the president, was marked by a number of scandals of a policy nature. These included

bid rigging Bid rigging is a fraudulent scheme in procurement auctions resulting in non-competitive bids and can be performed by corrupt officials, by firms in an orchestrated act of collusion, or between officials and firms. This form of collusion is illegal ...

for the refurbishment of the Haedo Palace (the headquarters of the secretariat); her handling of a serious, 1996 forest fire in the vicinity of

Nahuel Huapi National Park Nahuel Huapi National Park () is the oldest national park in Argentina, established in 1934. It surrounds Nahuel Huapi Lake in the foothills of the Patagonian Andes. The largest of the national parks in the region, it has an area of , or nearly ...

; a 1999 flood in the humid northeast region; and, particularly, of a 1993 plan to decontaminate the Riachuelo (a heavily polluted waterway along Buenos Aires' industrial southside). Alsogaray obtained a US$250 million loan from the IADB for the purpose; of this, however, US$150 million were destined to unrelated social projects, six million were lost in IADB fines, US$90 million remained unallocated, and only one million was used for the actual cleanup. Her own position within the right-wing UCeDé, at the helm of which she succeeded her father in 1994, became jeopardized by a rivalry with the party's second-ranking figure, National Mortgage Bank Director Adelina D'Alessio de Viola. Upon stepping down when President Menem left office in 1999, financial transactions in her name totaling over US$200 million came under scrutiny, and Alsogaray was ultimately convicted of misappropriation of public funds in 2004. She was sentenced to three years in prison the following May and served 21 months, thus becoming the only Menem administration official to serve time in prison. Following a number of appeals and pursuant to her conviction, her Recoleta neighborhood townhouse was auctioned by a federal court in 2009.''La Nación'': Remataron el petit hotel de María Julia por casi un millón de dólares
/ref> She faced additional charges related to the Environment Ministry's handling of the 1996 forest fires, but was acquitted when the

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

expired on these in April 2013. Alsogaray served a further two years in house arrest between 2014 and 2016 on charges of illicit enrichment. She faced a further charge - her eighth - of awarding an illegitimate contract worth US$30 million in 1990 to the Meller Company for ENTel telephone directories when other state agencies advised against doing so. Her health worsened, however, and she died of pancreatic cancer in the Los Arcos clinic in Palermo, Buenos Aires, in 2017. She was 74.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alsogaray, Maria Julia 1942 births 2017 deaths Deaths from pancreatic cancer Deaths from cancer in Argentina Politicians from Buenos Aires Argentine people of Basque descent University of Buenos Aires alumni Argentine engineers Women members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies Members of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies elected in Buenos Aires Women government ministers of Argentina Argentine anti-communists Burials at La Recoleta Cemetery 20th-century Argentine women politicians 20th-century Argentine politicians