Once-Mighty Teachers Union Boss to Remain Jailed Pending Trial Agencia EFE
go to original January 8, 2014

Photo taken Feb. 27, 2013, of former union leader Elba Esther Gordillo behind bars in a Mexico City prison. (EFE)

MEXICO CITY - An appellate court rejected a motion from former teachers union chief Elba Esther Gordillo challenging her pre-trial detention on charges of tax fraud, the Mexican Attorney General's Office said Tuesday.

Gordillo, 68, was indicted in November for allegedly understating her income on a 2008 tax return.

This accusation comes after others already filed by the AG's office against Gordillo for embezzlement and racketeering.

Gordillo, who for decades headed Mexico's powerful SNTE teachers union, was arrested last February 26.

She was accused of embezzling 2 billion pesos ($152 million) in SNTE members' dues to cover personal expenses and buy real estate.

Gordillo, once described by scholar M. Delal Baer as "Jimmy Hoffa in a dress," was expelled from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in 2006 for helping create the New Alliance Party, which tried unsuccessfully to form a coalition with Enrique Peña Nieto, who won the 2012 presidential election for the PRI.

See the original at La Prensa

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