19 years jail sentence artist minors abuser: The Audiencia de Barcelona has sentenced a 66-year-old artist to eighteen years and ten months in prison for having sexually abused three children and prostituted two others, and imposed, in addition, the payment of an indemnity of 88,000 euros to the victims.

In a judgment, the court considered proven that the defendant, a neighbor of Calella (Barcelona) and in preventive detention since July 2016, sexually abused three young men, one of them continuously, knowing that they were minors, although he ruled that suffered "serious consequences".

The judges attribute to the condemned the crimes of abuse and not those of sexual aggression requested by the Prosecutor's Office, considering that the threats made by the artist, dedicated to painting and sculpture, "lack sufficient intimidating efficacy", since one of the The victims returned to the convict's home at least once.

19 years jail sentence artist minors abuser

The artist's house was the meeting point of a group of friends, aged between 12 and 16 years old, who used to go to the floor to watch movies - sometimes pornographic films -, smoke tobacco, marijuana or drink alcohol.

During these times, the defendant asked the victims, who came from immigrant families who had recently arrived and in a situation of economic vulnerability, to do erotic massages in exchange for money and, if they refused, threatened to leave them locked up in their home.

The judges have also condemned the adult for possession of child pornography after the police found discs and DVDs with images of sexual practices with minors at home.

The case was uncovered by the complaints of a neighbor of the condemned, who alerted the Mossos d'Esquadra of a "strange and large influx of minors" who entered and left the home of a man with whom, apparently, they had no link.

MORE: Two premature babies die due to bacteria in Barcelona

Two premature babies affected by a previous pathology, enterocolitis, died at the Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona when they were infected by the bacterium Klebsiella, and sources at the center explained that they are analyzing the 45 children in the neonatal plant, and some have been isolated.

While waiting for the results of the analyzes to determine the number and focus of the infection, the aforementioned sources have assured that the only two babies that have shown symptoms are those who died, on April 21 and 24, who were born at 24 and 25 weeks of gestation - with less than 500 and 700 grams, respectively.

The hospital has attributed the death to the enterocolitis they had at birth, an inflammation of the intestine that has facilitated the entry of the bacteria into the blood causing sepsis, and have explained that they were very weak and could not save them.

The Patient Advocate Association has asked the Superior Public Prosecutor of Catalonia, Francisco

Bañeres, study the case, after a parent of one of the deceased babies expressed "serious doubts about the protocol followed by the hospital center in front of the infection in the room".

According to a letter this person has criticized that his daughter was in an incubator next to babies who were infected before, and one of those who died first, about what is asked if they should have been isolated, although the center denies that the infection was known and stay together.