The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed an appeal filed by Rivis Leomar Pineda Pineda, sentenced to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of beating and raping his ex-partner.
Such decision is contained in judgment No. 175 drafted by magistrate Maikel Moreno Pérez. The sentence against Pineda was published on September 22, 2022 by the 1st Trial Court of the Judicial Circuit on Crimes of Violence Against Women of the Insular Region.
The investigation into the events began on August 8, 2021, the day the victim reported Pineda to the Directorate of the Criminal Investigation Service of the Nueva Esparta State Police.
There she recounted that in the early morning of that day Pineda, with whom she had a son, showed up at her house with the excuse of looking for the boy.
That same day the subject was apprehended and charged with the crime of aggravated sexual violence. Subsequently, the victim filed a private trial request for the crime of physical violence, ruling out sexual assault.
The hours of the trial
The trial against Pineda took place between March 9 and May 24, 2022. At the time of issuing the conviction of 12 years and six months, the court stamped a note that reads: “it is recorded that the citizen (…) who appears as a victim of this criminal matter, once the decision was issued, it became aggressive, insulting the representative of the First Prosecutor’s Office of the Public Ministry…”
Pineda’s private lawyer filed an appeal against the sentence, but the Court of Appeals of the Insular Region dismissed the approach, which is why they went to the Criminal Chamber of the High Court.
Pineda’s defense denounced that the Court of Appeals remained silent in relation to the assessment of the testimonies presented in the trial and especially that of the victim, who asserted that the sexual relations with her ex-partner were by consensus.
In this regard, the magistrates responded that such a complaint violates one of the fundamental principles of the criminal process, such as immediacy, since such evidentiary activity is the exclusive competence of the courts of first instance in trial functions.
“In this context, it is evident that the complaint object of this analysis is mainly aimed at expressing his disagreement with the ruling that is adverse to him, which is not subsumed in any of the reasons or assumptions for an appeal to be considered founded.” cassation”, the magistrates stressed when they dismissed Pineda’s complaints, thus confirming the sentence that was imposed on him.
