Attorney Abelardo de la Espriella fanatically tries to intimidate Colombia’s journalists, but seems to panic when one tells him “I eat lawyers for breakfast.”
The humorless lawyer is ridiculed every time he fails to silence a journalist who threw one of his corrupt clients in prison or threatens to put one of his allegedly corrupt clients behind bars.
The attorney said Wednesday “I don’t give a shit” that the press freedom foundation FLIP expressed its concern De la Espriella keeps trying to censor what he called “libtard journalists who only defend the interests of the left.”
Evidence indicates the attorney does give a shit, especially when journalists expose his clients’ corruption or make him look like an idiot.
In his often futile attempts to protect his clients’ self-proclaimed “good name and honor,” De la Espriella “abuses legal tools to intimidate and silence voices who reveal or question any issue that concerns him,” according to the FLIP.
The lawyer currently has four slapp suits pending against renowned journalist Cecilia Orozco, whose articles exposed the corruption of former Constitutional Court magistrate Jorge Pretelt, who is serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption after De la Espriella’s legal defense failed.
Colombia Reports previously tried to verify the FLIP’s intimidation claim, but failed as the attorney blocked this website within seconds after telling him “I eat lawyers for breakfast and politicians for lunch” on Twitter.
In 2018, journalist Daniel Coronell humiliated the attorney after De la Espriella expressed to be “honored” for the “Order of Merit” the attorney received just like everyone else who made a donation to the Republican Party.
“I will see you in court for that other thing, which is what’s got your desperate,” De la Espriella told the journalist, who almost sent the attorney running last year when Coronell demanded De la Espriella disclosed “all his legal consultancy contracts” of the past six years.
Two weeks later De la Espriella lost another two cases against investigator Elena Stashenko he accused of “tarnishing the good name” of Laboratorios Pronabell. The scientist exposed the company was a falsely advertising one of its products as “100% natural” while it contained 10% diclofenalc, an anti-inflammatory drug.
A month later, De la Espriella failed to take down the popular online series “Matarife,” when falsely claiming that evidence of former President Alvaro Uribe’s ties to organized crime “tarnished the good name, honor and dignity” of the former Medellin Cartel associate and alleged war criminal.
Last month, the attorney gave up on his own attempted journalism, claiming his weekly column in Barranquilla newspaper El Heraldo, was “boring frankly.”