
Group rape in Chubut: “the victim was mistreated by the court”, according to the lawyers who represent her
The lawyers in charge of the lawsuit in the trial that had three young people accused of group sexual abuse of which they were acquitted They denounced that the victim was “mistreated by the judges” Ana Karina Breckle, Marcela Alejandra Pérez and María Laura Martini. In an extensive letter, the lawyers Verónica Heredia, María Florencia Piermarini and Marisol Carmona, maintained that “the victim [por M.S., de 26 años] He declared at the time of making the complaint and underwent an expert opinion for three days of six hours each day, before seven experts from the defenders and the prosecution, and had to answer more than 567 questions and evaluations about his personality”, instead, “the defendants [por Luciano Mallemaci, Exequiel Quintana y Leandro del Villar] They never submitted to any expertise or answered any questions”, according to the Télam news agency. Mallemaci, Quintana and Del Villar were acquitted. due to “lack of evidence” and for the benefit of principle of innocence. The ruling, signed by judges Breckle, and Martini was known the day before yesterday.The events occurred in September 2012 in Playa Unión, during a “gathering” of young people in the house of the grandson of former radical governor Atilio Oscar Viglione, in the run-up to the celebrations for the day of spring. The complaint was formalized in 2019 when the victim’s testimony became known on social networks. The lawyers who represented the victims maintained that there was a pact of silence between those who attended the party in September 2012 in Playa Unión where they occurred. the facts denounced, in which “all the men who were between 16 and 22 years old took refuge in time so as not to remember anything or something that would benefit them and the accused.” Instead, “all the women who testified were subjected to to violent interrogations for more than two hours” and when the lawyers objected “the judges repeated: these are the rules of the debate, you must answer”. The lawyers maintained that “a witness who complained to the judges because the questions are made to misrepresent, and to the question of why do I have to answer that?, received an answer ‘answer miss’”.“They -the accused- They declared before the judges and said what they wanted without answering any questions and also said their last words.affirmed the lawyers.The prosecutor Fernando Rivarola, in charge of the investigation, had expressed himself about the fact as an “intentional act of sexual venting”; In return, “she (by MS) appeared before the court to say her last words, to be heard for the first time before the judges. We asked that the defendants be removed from the room. The lawyers complained and the judges deliberated to decide whether to allow our request when it is expressly established in the law.” The lawyers considered that “Stereotypes, misogyny, the Church, classism and patriarchy, all in their maximum expression, are more valid than ever in the criminal process”.”We heard: ‘sexual release’, ‘later sexual life is an indication’, ‘if the sexual life of the one reporting abuse is not investigated, the judgment cannot be made’, ‘as Genesis says’, ‘as it says Mateo 18′”, reproduced the plaintiffs to plot the phrases alluding to the defenders. The trial was oral, but not public and was kept under strict confidentiality by order of the court, so no details of the debate were known. However, in According to Télam, the document released by the plaintiff attorneys suggested that the young woman was abused while she was affected by alcohol intake. “All the witnesses stated that she, that night, was very drunk, very drunk, drunker than all, she staggered and vomited in one piece.” Piermarini, Heredia and Carmona maintained that “six health professionals who treated her since 2012 until 2021, pediatrician, psychologists and psychiatrist, affirmed that she suffers from post-traumatic stress as a result of sexual abuse” despite which “the judges maintained that she consented”. At the end of the brief, the lawyers assured that they will appeal the sentence: “On 28 The fundamentals will be known in March. On April 11 we will present the challenge before the Superior Court of Justice”, they stressed. The ruling will also be appealed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The challenge of the sentence “by extraordinary means before the Superior Court of Justice” had already been advanced by Attorney General of Chubut, Jorge Miquelarena.“María Bottini, a member of the prosecutorial trial team, expressed her disagreement with the acquittal verdict and announced that they will challenge the sentence,” it was explained in a statement from the Public Prosecutor’s Office. “We do not agree with the way in which the evidence was interpreted , which was without a gender perspective,” said Bottini. In addition, sources from the Attorney General’s Office, quoted by Télam, the accusatory task of prosecutor Fernando Rivarola for considering that “despite the criticism he received, it was shown that his strategy was the correct one, because if it had been achieved through the abbreviated trial, as the victim wanted, today they would be condemned in fact and would also have received financial compensation.” Rivarola had been heavily criticized because, at the time, he had expressed himself about the made like a “willful act of sexual relief”. Her words unleashed a strong social repudiation that escalated to the national level and included the public statement of figures from all over the political arc. The day the acquittal of the accused was known, the lawyer Heredia had said that the ruling was “unusual and biased because for ten years the truth was known and known in Puerto Madryn, with a victim who is a survivor of the mistreatment he received”.The Superior Court of Justice of Chubut repudiated the intimidating attacks suffered by the judges who acquitted those accused of gang rape. rules of the republican system. It is not lawful to try to impose the will of a group to the detriment of the normal functioning of the institutions. The questioning of judicial criteria must be directed by way of procedural resources, not by pressure, intimidating reproach or escrache. Any first-instance judicial decision is subject to review by higher courts at the request of the parties involved in the process, always within the framework of current legislation, but never outside the rule of law, “he said in a press release. published on the website of the Superior Court of Justice.