Lucía Pérez’s parents during a demonstration to demand justice, 2016.Atlas
In October 2016, Argentinian Lucía Pérez was 16 when she was pronounced dead in a first-aid room in Mar del Plata. More than six years later, the judiciary sentenced Matías Farías, 29, to life imprisonment for supplying her with drugs, raping her and killing her. Juan Pablo Offidani, 48, has been sentenced to eight years in prison – adding to a previous conviction of 15 total – for considering him a criminally responsible incidental participant in the crime of “carnal access sexual abuse aggravated by the delivery of”. narcotics”.
The sentencing was applauded by dozens of people who gathered outside the Oral Criminal Court 2 in the town of Mar del Plata, 400 kilometers south of Buenos Aires. “Everything changed with this eternal life we got for Farias today. Until yesterday we didn’t even know if this hearing will take place or not, if there will be this verdict or not. Now no drug dealer, no dealer is going to break another girl’s ass like they did to Lucía,” said the victim’s mother, Marta Montero, as she left the court.
“Lucía was destroyed, she was destroyed inside. They raped her up to 15 minutes before she died. They raped her until her body died at the end,” added Montero, on the verge of tears, after thanking feminist and human rights organizations for their support.
The case of Lucía Pérez became one of the symbols in the fight against femicide in Argentina, but the first trial was full of irregularities. A few days after her death, the prosecutor in charge told the media that the teenager had been staked to death, an accusation which experts later denied and ensured that she was removed from the case. In 2018, in a highly controversial verdict, judges acquitted those accused of feminicide because the cause of Pérez’s death was “overdose intoxication” and not abuse but a consensual sexual relationship. Farías and Offidani were instead convicted of selling drugs. The verdict triggered widespread social outrage and was appealed against.
In 2020, a second-instance court overturned the verdict and ordered a new hearing to be held, believing that the judges “made an undue effort in analyzing the victim’s intimate life prior to the event, without disclosing the facts.” a genre perspective”.
In reasoning for the overturned verdict, the judges cited the victim’s prior sexual experiences, her status as a drug user and her absence from school, among other things, to validate the version of consent used by the defendants.
In the verdict released this Thursday, the judges asked prosecutors to investigate “the possible presence of third parties” in Faría’s home who may have hidden important evidence at the crime scene.
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