Prosecutor Mariana Alfaro appealed the decision of the Purification, Prioritization and Assignment Department (DPA) of the Prosecutor’s Office that assigned her the case of the senator Gustavo Penades. The court prosecutor, Juan Gómez, had ordered that the accusation of the nationalist militant Romina Celeste Papasso, who said she had been sexually exploited by Penadés at the age of 13, be investigated ex officio.
The case had been assigned to Alfaro yesterday and she had 72 hours to appeal the decision. She did it this Thursday and now the DPA must consider her arguments and see if she maintains the assignment or refers it to another prosecutor, El País reported and confirmed. The Observer.
Alfaro was on duty until the weekend – when Papasso first disclosed having been sexually exploited – and then Alicia Ghione, who was working when the militant disclosed her name, came on duty.
Alfaro is in charge of other causes of public relevance, including Operation Ocean, whose trial will take place this year.
The story of the facts
Papasso indicated that when he was 13 years old, he lied to his parents about his whereabouts and went “on the streets.” She indicated that one day she was standing on Avenida Italia, where Luis Alberto de Herrera begins, “the one on the side of the park, a continuation of Luis Alberto de Herrera, which is like a monument,” she said. “I was walking from Avenida Italia to the fountain that is in Ricaldoni,” she said.
According to Papasso, Penadés was coming from the front in the car. At that time, she had not yet started her gender transition and was a boy. She noted that the senator stopped when she saw him and asked if she wanted to take a ride. She got on and the politician asked her what she liked.
After that, he “ended up convincing” him to go to a motel and never asked for his ID. He asked her to lower the back seat so the people at the hotel entrance wouldn’t see him. Inside the room, he recounted, they had sex.
“When he left, he told me: I’ll leave you this little gift. It was money. I know that at that time it was a lot of money,” he said. She also asked for his cell phone number.
Thus, they left the hotel together and left it in the middle of Parque Batlle. “That was what changed my life. Because when he leaves me he tells me: I’m going to leave you inside the park so that no one sees. He leaves me inside the park and from there another car immediately stops me. I go up and he pays me again. It was another person. The same modus operandi. The same way,” he said.
That’s how, she said, she started prostitution. According to her, there was a second meeting that took place after Penadés called her on the phone, but then the link was cut off.
