The second trial of the two accused of raping and murdering the adolescent Lucía Pérez in the city of Mar del Plata in October 2016 will begin this Tuesday, and will last for at least two weeks, with the testimony of almost 50 witnesses. , judicial sources reported.
The new oral debate will take place before the Oral Court in the Criminal 2 (TOC) 2 of Mar del Plata, and the defendants, Matías Farías (29) and Juan Pablo Offidani (47), will not be present, since they will follow each hearing remotely from their places of detention.
Offidani and Farias are accused of the crime of “sexual abuse with carnal access, aggravated by the supply of narcotics followed by death in an ideal contest with femicide”.
Both will face this new trial, after the Buenos Aires Supreme Court confirmed a resolution of the provincial Court of Criminal Cassation, which annulled the acquittal for the crimes of sexual abuse and femicide issued in 2018 in a first oral debate before TOC 1.
The trial will take place before a new court, made up of judges Gustavo Fissore, Alexis Simaz and Roberto Falcone, with the prosecution in charge of prosecutor Leandro Arévalo, head of the Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) 7.
The lawyers Verónica Heredia and María Florencia Piermarini will intervene as a private individual, representing the parents of Lucía (16), Marta Montero and Guillermo Pérez, and her brother, Matías.
Offidani’s private defense will be in charge of César Sivo and Romina Merino, and Farías will be assisted by the official defender Laura Solari.
The hearings will take place at the TOC 2 headquarters, on the sixth floor of the local courts, and the trial is expected to last for at least two weeks, with an estimated sentencing date of March 1according to judicial sources.
The statement of 49 witnesses is scheduled, and in the first hearing the victim’s parents will do so, after the parties present their opening guidelines.
The two defendants will follow the trial remotely: Farías, from the Florencia Varela Penal Unit, and Offidani, from the Batán Prison Warden.
The development of the trial will also be followed from another room located on the second floor of the courts, where relatives of the accused and the victim will be present, and representatives of 11 organizations and entities involved.
The opening and closing will also be transmitted through the channel YouTube of the Provincial Court, as happened in the oral debate for the crime of Fernando Báez Sosa.
For security reasons, a fence was also set up in the vicinity of the local courts.
the first trial
During the first trial, held in November 2018, Farías and Offidani were sentenced to eight years in prison by judges Facundo Gómez Urso, Pablo Viñas and Aldo Carnevale, but only for the sale of drugs at the door of the school that Lucía attended.
both were acquitted However, due to the accusations of sexual abuse followed by death and femicide, but Chamber IV of the Buenos Aires Court of Cassation revoked both acquittals in August 2020, ordered the “nullity” of the first trial and ordered the making of a new one.
That resolution was confirmed a year later by the Provincial Court.
“An animal has more rights than the one Lucía had in the first trial”
Lucía Pérez’s parents assured that they hope that this time “justice” will be done, that this new court will have a “gender perspective” and that there will be sentences to life imprisonment.
“Lucía has not had justice for 2,308 days. We have been waiting for this trial for five years and to find out who killed Lucía,” Marta Montero, the victim’s mother, told Télam in the Mar del Plata courts and before the start of the first hearing.
“We want her to have justice. We expect justice with a gender perspective that she did not have the other time, nor humanitarian ”he pointed out in reference to the 2018 trial, which culminated in the defendants acquitted for femicide, something that the Court of Cassation later reversed by ordering this new oral debate.
“An animal has more rights than Lucía had in the first trial. No gender protocol was applied,” Montero remarked about that first ruling.
Meanwhile, Lucía’s father, Guillermo Pérez, added: “We have to believe that this court has the independence to give life (prison) for aggravated homicide.”
Lucia’s death occurred on the morning of October 8, 2016and according to the hypothesis of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the adolescent had met the two defendants a day before, when they approached through a friend from the Mar del Plata Middle School 3 to sell her a marijuana cigarette.
The next day, Farías summoned the girl to her home on 4800 Racedo Street, in the southern part of the city, where she would have been drugged and abused to the point of death.
“Clearly there was a femicide here and we hope there will be justice,” said Pietragalla
The Secretary for Human Rights, Horacio Pietragalla, assured that he is confident that the new court that will begin the second trial for the femicide of Lucía Pérez can do justice and “punish” those responsible for the alleged rape and murder of the 16-year-old teenager. , which occurred in 2016 in the city of Mar del Plata.
In dialogue with Télam, in the Mar del Plata courts and before the first hearing of the debate began, Pietragalla said: “It is an emblematic case, we have been accompanying the family and being present accompanying them, because we understand that it is a very important cause , that the ruling had to be reviewed.”
“We have expectations that this new court can really sanction what happened,” he expressed and criticized the actions of the first court that heard the case and acquitted the defendants in 2018 by stating that in that first trial there was “a look and a way of see and address a situation of a 16-year-old girl who they wanted to throw out of that place”.
“This case needed a review and a new trial. Clearly there was a femicide here and we hope there will be justice.”
Guido Lorenzino, head of the Buenos Aires Province Ombudsman’s Office, an organization that will intervene as “amicus curiae” in this second debate on the case, also attended the hearing, although without making any statements.
The deputy Romina Del Plá was also present in court, who confided to Télam that she was one of those who accompanied the request for impeachment for two of the judges of the first court that acquitted those accused of the rape and murder of Pérez.
