The reasons that explain the exculpation of Nacho Vidal for a crime of reckless homicide

Nothing worked in his favor when the complaint was filed: a porn actor in his professional decline, controversial per se, fond of exploring the esoteric side of existence in recent times.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
24 May 2023 Wednesday 22:53
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The reasons that explain the exculpation of Nacho Vidal for a crime of reckless homicide

Nothing worked in his favor when the complaint was filed: a porn actor in his professional decline, controversial per se, fond of exploring the esoteric side of existence in recent times... Nacho Vidal (Mataró, 1973) was denounced as responsible for the death from a photographer with whom he met to celebrate the bufo toad ceremony together: J.L.A. died a few minutes after consuming the powerful hallucinogen generated by this amphibian and whose use certain Mesoamerican shamans know about. As Nacho Vidal officiated at the experience, the family of the ill-fated photographer went to court. The events occurred in July 2019.

Although the case against Nacho Vidal has been dismissed by the Investigating Court No. 2 of Xàtiva, the death of that man weighs heavily on his conscience. He does not raise his head. In his defense, the will of the deceased was paramount, who decided to submit to this exotic rite for strictly personal reasons, and who had consumed a certain substance fatally incompatible with the ingestion of the alkaloid obtained from the amphibian. This is how Daniel Salvador, a lawyer at Vosseler Abogados, explains it in conversation with La Vanguardia.

In a recent broadcast of the Lo de Évole program, Nacho Vidal told that he was going through a depression. Being charged with reckless homicide hasn't helped him.

It is a case that has not ended, since the private prosecution has appealed and will try to bring it to trial with the tools that the legal system allows them. I share what I spoke with Nacho and that is that the dismissal of the case has brought calm. For him and for us, which is what we were chasing. It is a bittersweet feeling: the rest for the judge's decision but the bitterness that there is nothing good in this episode. With all due respect to the family of the deceased, he was just missing, it was a horrible accident and for Nacho it has been an enormous trauma that will always be with him: a person who should not have died has died. Are you happy with the judge's decision? No. At most, some tranquility at least. Or relief, once you're no longer charged with manslaughter.

As has been published, the person who died went to Nacho to celebrate the bufo toad ceremony in order to get rid of some addiction.

We must qualify this. It has been written that people resort to it to cure themselves of addictions but we do not have the record, much less the certainty due to the information that works in the cause, that this was the reason. It could have been both for that reason and in a playful context. Maybe yes, maybe not, but I guarantee that many people turn to this substance to live an unusual experience.

I imagine that the main trump card of the defense was that the deceased voluntarily decided to undergo this rite and that he had used cocaine before that moment. Is it so?

Absolutely. The self-endangerment, the responsibility of the deceased himself was something that we were clear from the beginning: he requested to try that substance and verbalized having taken it before. How to repeat the experience? Well, with people who also take it or want to take it. Somewhat later, after the autopsy, he found positive for cocaine. In summary: the autonomy of will of an adult person who in his free will decided to take this was combined and, according to the forensics, what caused the death was the adverse reaction to the two substances, the poison of the toad and the cocaine present. in your organism. And that is why the judge determined that Nacho is not responsible for this sad event.

It is stated in the report that, despite the fact that it was an accident, when the deceased began to get sick, to convulse, they did not call the ambulance immediately. Because?

Both Nacho and other people present at that moment, I sense that the deceased himself, because he had already taken that substance, believed that it was a logical effect of ingesting: losing consciousness first and then having an experience. That the subject collapses is not abnormal. When they see that he loses his breath, they notice that things are not going well and that is when they call the emergency services. Meanwhile, they give him assisted breathing and perform cardiac recovery maneuvers as best they can.

How did Nacho come into contact with this type of ceremonies?

I don't know exactly, although he himself has explained that he comes from years ago. He even recorded a video in 2017 about it. And although this is not important for the cause, I do want to make it clear that it was published at the beginning that Nacho sold himself as a shaman, that he charged for that ceremony, etc. Nothing at all. Neither he nor he dedicates himself to that nor did he receive anything, nor did he profit in any way; He simply agreed to consume that hallucinogen with the other person. And from what I've been able to document, it's much more widespread than we think and people have come up to this experience for all kinds of reasons.

Are you calm with the oversight of the case?

Yes, as I told you at the beginning. Although it is a legitimate right to exhaust the system of remedies that any citizen has within their reach, what is accredited will not be altered and that is that it was the deceased himself who voluntarily decided to submit to the ritual and that the cause of death was not only due to use of the bufo toad. In short, finding guilty where there are none, I don't think it will get anywhere. In any case, I want to state something important: up to now we have kept a low profile in terms of dealing with the media out of respect for the victim and her relatives. We want to safeguard her memory and combining that with explaining Nacho's defense is very complicated.

Based on the fact that justice should be and is impartial, in terms of public opinion, has it played against the fact that Nacho Vidal is a famous character and for a profession as unusual as that of an adult film star?

I am convinced that yes: his figure, what surrounds him and represents, plus the characteristics of the case – exotic substance, sudden death – had everything to fill pages and pages in the media. But from what I heard at the beginning to today, fortunately things have been falling into place.