The Justice of Mar del Plata sentenced Matías Farías
to life imprisonment
as the perpetrator of the crime against Lucía Pérez and
Juan Pablo Offidani
to 15 years for being a necessary participant in the sexual abuse and murder of the adolescent on October 8, 2016 in that seaside city.
Judges Gustavo Fissore, Alexis Simaz and Roberto Falcone read the ruling, with the sentence for Matías Farías (29) and Juan Pablo Offidani (48) as guilty.
Farías and Offidani were accused of the crime of "sexual abuse with carnal access aggravated by resulting in the death of the offended person, by the supply of narcotic drugs and in the context of gender violence, ideally in competition with femicide."
In the case of Farías, both the prosecution and the representatives of the adolescent's family agreed that he should be sentenced to life imprisonment, as the author.
Offidani, meanwhile, was accused by the prosecutor Leandro Arévalo of acting as a "secondary participant", for which he asked that he be sentenced to 20 years in prison, while the lawyers Verónica Heredia and María Florencia Piermarini, in their capacity as a victim , they considered that his participation was "necessary" and therefore he should also receive the maximum penalty.
The defenses of both rejected the accusation and understood that in the trial carried out between February 7 and 28 the accused crime could not be proven,
for which reason they asked that they be acquitted
.
The ruling was announced on the sixth floor of the Mar del Plata courts and was also broadcast on the Youtube channel of the Directorate of Communication and Press of the Buenos Aires Supreme Court, as occurred with the opening of the trial and the arguments of the parties. .
The defendants were not present and followed the hearing remotely from their places of detention, as occurred in the rest of the oral proceedings: Farias, from the Florencio Varela Criminal Unit, and Offidani, from the Batán Criminal Unit.
Those who did witness the moment in the room were Lucia's parents.
The surroundings of the courts were fenced off and a flag of about one hundred meters was hung on the grating on Tucumán street with images, black and white photos, of victims of femicide.
Behind the fence, with flags calling for justice, about a hundred people awaited the verdict.
According to the investigation of the case, Lucía had met both defendants the day before her death, when they went to the local Middle School 3 to sell her a marijuana cigarette.
According to evidence, on the afternoon of October 8, 2016, the minor was taken to a health room in the southern part of the city, where she arrived lifeless, after spending the morning at Farías' house, in Racedo al 4800, in the Alfar neighborhood.
Experts who testified at the trial pointed out that the main hypothesis about the cause of his death points to heart failure linked to cocaine use, and pointed out that, although it was not possible to rule it out, no signs of sexual abuse were found.
During the first trial for the case, in November 2018, Farías and Offidani were sentenced to eight years in prison by judges Facundo Gómez Urso, Pablo Viñas and Aldo Carnevale, from TOC 1, but only for selling drugs at the door. from the school, and were cleared of all other charges.
In August 2020, Chamber IV of the Buenos Aires Court of Cassation revoked those acquittals, ordered the "nullity" of the trial and ordered a new one to be held, a resolution that was confirmed a year later by the provincial Court.
look also
Lucía Pérez: they announce the verdict in the second trial of the two accused of raping and killing the young woman
Controversy over a photo of Alberto Fernández: they ask for the annulment of the trial by Lucía Pérez
