Mariló Montero, in the trial for her toplessness in Bora Bora: “I felt raped twice”

The second part of the trial against the paparazzi begins Diego Arrabal y Gustavo Gonzalez for the photographs of Marilo Montero in Bora Bora. The communicator was sunbathing topless when she was photographed. The images were not published but the ex of Carlos Herrera filed a lawsuit against the reporters for “revelation of secrets.” The journalist has already won the civil procedure (which sentenced the photographers to compensate the communicator with 265,000 euros) and now the criminal case is resolved, for which she requests six years in prison for the photojournalists. After a first hearing last July, the process was resumed this Tuesday at the Barcelona Court: “I felt violated”Montero said.

There were 82 photographs that, according to Montero, “passed from editorial to editorial, from hand to hand. They described them to me with such precision that it was really humiliating,” he said. The defense of the accused insists that these images were never published but Mariló downplays the detail: “With those photographs they raped me twice”the journalist has assured, according to ABC. “It was as if it had been shown on the front page”. She has also claimed that she received constant threats that forced her to “flee my country” and that she had to go to the United States to “end the persecution.”

After this first session, the accused Diego Arrabal seemed sad and indignant: “Today I experienced the hardest moment that a photojournalist, a paparazzo, can experience. Today I sat on the bench in a criminal proceeding. Do you know what I'm telling you? “If I have to go to prison for doing my job, here I am.”

Seven years of fighting

At the beginning of 2022, the Court of First Instance number 35 of Madrid sentenced the agency of the aforementioned photographers, Code Press, to pay 340,000 euros (265,000 for Mariló and 75,000 for the friend who also appears in the photos) for capturing these images, then becoming the highest compensation in Spain for taking photos without permission. However, in August the conviction was revoked due to the existence of the criminal procedure opened in Barcelona against the paparazzi, since the judge considered that until this was resolved, civil actions could not be initiated, that is, compensation could be established.

It was then that the journalist spoke loud and clear about what this judicial ordeal that has not yet come to an end had meant for her: “Everything I experienced was humiliating, even today my mouth is dry and it makes me want to cry because it is very humiliating and this is intolerable”, said. “In addition to two years of constant persecution by the paparazzi, there have been more than seven years of judicial proceedings in which it has been necessary to remember a multitude of painful moments, demonstrating them step by step.”