The trial against
José Alperovich
, former senator and three-time governor of
Tucumán
, accused of
sexual abuse by his niece and former employee
, begins this Monday at 10:30 in the Oral Criminal Court 29, located at Talcahuano 550. It will be in charge of the Judge José María Ramos Padilla, will be behind closed doors and the testimony of more than
eighty witnesses
is expected
.
Alperovich must answer for
three cases of sexual abuse
, two of them attempted, and
six cases of sexual violence aggravated by carnal access
, in accordance with what was established by the judicial investigation based on complaints about the attacks that occurred between 2017 and 2018, in the City of Buenos Aires and in the province of Tucumán.
In September 2023, the National Criminal and Correctional Court 35 of the City of Buenos Aires elevated the case against the former governor of Tucumán to an oral trial and established February 5 as the start date of the debate.
The file began when the young woman reported the events at the end of 2019, while she was working as
Alperovich's assistant in the Senate
, from where the man from Tucumán was removed.
He took leave and was suspended some time later.
The complainant indicated that the abuses and attacks occurred
in Tucumán
and
in an apartment in
Puerto Madero
.
Video
The text that marked the beginning of the end
The National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office 10 of the Federal Capital intervened in the investigation, temporarily headed by prosecutor Santiago Vismara, and the Specialized Prosecutor's Unit for Violence against Women (UFEM), directed by Mariela Labozzetta.
In May 2022, the prosecutor's office had considered that "in all cases, mediating
intimidation for his commission
", the former senator
"abused a relationship of dependency, power and authority
."
"It was proven how the accused, using his physical force, exercising intimidating abuse of power and gender violence, reduced the victim under his control, and made her a
mere object of sexual satisfaction
, of objectification, subjecting her in a violent, outrageous and degrading, doing so over the course of a little more than three months," said the prosecutor.
Meanwhile, days later, Judge Osvaldo Rappa prosecuted Alperovich for the reported crimes and considered that they were committed "through abuse of power and authority."
José Alperovich during a session in the Senate after his niece's complaint and a poster against sexual and gender violence: "No means no."
Rappa highlighted in his indictment that the victim suffered "outrageous sexual submission."
"It is enough to simply say that the person for whom he worked was not a stranger to the victim, but
a public person with political power
that he held in the province of Tucumán after having been governor for three consecutive terms and a member of his family, even if it was far away," the judge added.
In his investigation before the magistrate,
Alperovich denied having abused his niece
and did not accept questions, according to judicial sources.
In principle, the case was processed in two jurisdictions: in the criminal and correctional jurisdiction of the City of Buenos Aires and in the Tucumán justice system.
But after a resolution by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in May of last year, it was resolved that all the facts should be investigated in the Federal Capital, in accordance with what was stated in his opinion by the acting Attorney General,
Eduardo Casal
.
In this way, Judge Rappa continued investigating with the contribution of prosecutors Santiago Vismara and Mariela Labozzetta in charge of the Specialized Prosecutor's Unit for Violence against Women.
The 9 acts of abuse for which Alperovich is accused
In an extensive writing (419 pages), Judge Osvaldo Rappa, head of the National Criminal and Correctional Court 35, expanded on "the gender perspective", spoke of
"sexual, symbolic, emotional, physical violence."
And he ordered the prosecution of Alperovich "for considering him '
prima facie
' as the author criminally responsible for the crime of simple sexual abuse repeated on three occasions, two attempted, in real competition with sexual abuse aggravated by six acts, mediating abuse of power and authority; all of which, due to its circumstances and duration, caused the victim to experience outrageous sexual submission.
Alperovich was prosecuted for having abused his niece, and then also his private secretary on
nine occasions.
The first two times were in December 2017 at night, in
one of Alperovich's apartments in Puerto Madero
.
There the then senator tried to force her in various ways, touching her, abusing her.
The niece then reported that he abused her on three separate occasions in February 2018
in
his car.
Then came the
rapes, in a house in Tucumán, in March
.
Then he continued touching her, bothering her, abusing her and threatening her:
“Do something like this if you don't know what's going to happen to you
. ”
Finally she was encouraged to resign on May 19 of that year, and told him that it was because of all the abuse suffered by her.
The psychological tests carried out on the victim confirmed the traumatic consequences and psychological damage resulting from situations of sexually related violence.
In the case, Alperovich's niece was able to recount the psychological pressure she felt from him, that
she felt that no one was ever going to save her
, and that this was paralyzing, like knowing that he had his guards outside the door, that they were many men, who were there all the time and who were armed protecting him.
She was also able to say that in therapy she just saw the different ways in which he raped her.
That the subjugation had been such that she experienced it as an expropriation, as if she was not the owner of her body.
She had a great deterioration in her body, depression, panic attacks, anguish and anxiety, hair loss, weakened nails, lack of appetite;
He lost more than 10 kilos, he had tremors, he felt short of breath, he had lost the meaning of his life.
The letter from Alperovich's niece
Alperovich's niece accompanied the complaint she made against the former senator for sexual abuse with a moving letter.
For a year and a half, my uncle José Alperovich violated my physical, psychological and sexual integrity. I am sure that no person who has suffered sexual violence would want to be in this place, exposing the most painful intimacy of his life. But they force us to find in this way the possibility of being heard.
We are no longer silent, but we also do not want to speak in hushed tones about what happens to us, what we feel, what they did to us and how we go about returning to life after such traumatic events have changed it forever.
I don't write to convince anyone of anything. I am here against the oppression of silence and for the need to recover my life, to heal by calling things as they are, without softening or coloring them, giving the monster a name and surname. When you don't name it, it doesn't exist.
Mine is called Jose Jorge Alperovich, my second uncle and boss, by whom I was sexually, physically and psychologically violated from December 2017 to May 2019. For a year and a half I suffered violations of my physical and sexual integrity. The subjugation was devastating. So much so that I couldn't even put it into words. He oscillated freely and comfortably in the three scenarios in which he positioned me: family, work, and the horror of the intimacy that he forced me to live with him.
I didn't want him to kiss me. She did the same. I didn't want him to touch me. She did the same. I didn't want him to penetrate me. She did the same. Immobilized and paralyzed, looking at the rooms, waiting for everything to end, for time to pass. He would get out of there and be in my house, there would be more people around him, and dissimulation and work would take him away from me.
He would get tired of me, of me not loving him, of me being “asexual” as he called me. But her fixation did not stop, for a long time she wanted more and more often, with more desire, with more strength, with more violence because of my resistance.
The feeling that no one was ever going to save me, that there was not going to be an interruption or something to get me out of those places. It was expressly his will. I couldn't leave the confinement alone because I knew that behind the first door there were landlords, and armed police and guards. Everyone knowing what was happening inside and taking care of his borders. I was completely trapped.
I never chose to be there that way. She told him every no. But my no's for him were never enough. It wasn't about the impetus or the number of times he told it to him or how he explained it to him or how he was mean to my body or how he tried to defend me or whether he cried or not. I have never cried so much in my life.
During all that time I didn't have a breath. I worked non-stop, without vacations, without holidays. I only freed myself when he traveled. But when he returned, the nightmare returned too. Until he stopped, until the situations in which he decided to be alone with me to touch me and penetrate me became situations of violence and public abuse, in front of people. But no longer inside, no more to the bone, no more alone.
Think about who I was before, without fear, with the desire to develop, to learn, to live.
This has been difficult for me since the day it started happening and in every way. I just want justice. Get my life back. I want to start over by putting everything in its place. Responsibility of actions, consequences for whom it corresponds. Until now, I only carry them. Take off this backpack that I can no longer hold and hand it to its owner.
I'm not lying, I'm not looking for fame. Nobody wants to become famous for telling the horror they experienced. I don't want money nor is there a political background behind my complaint. I am much more than all that can be speculated. This is for me. The most important reason for my life is my rebirth, my healing and the search for justice. What more important motive than the value of my own life can I have?
I am here telling what I experienced for my safety but also so that other women are encouraged to speak. This did not kill me, I can proclaim myself and I can defend myself. I can recover, I can take care of myself, I can choose myself. Today I choose not to be silent anymore. Even though she told me, in full horror: 'Shut up, don't you see how I am?', to cover up all my no's. I won't shut up anymore. This is my never again. I hope it is also the never again of all those of us who want to stop being silent.
MG