Monday, February 6, 2023 | 12:30 p.m.
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 tomorrow 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 from 9 o’clock 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 of remotely from their places of detention.
Offidani and Farías are accused of the crime of “sexual abuse with carnal access, aggravated by the supply of narcotics followed by death in an ideal competition 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 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 and the estimated sentencing date is March 1, according to judicial sources.
On the first day, the parties will present their guidelines and the witness statement of the victim’s parents is scheduled.
At the request of the defenses, neither of the two defendants will be present in the courtroom, who will follow the trial remotely: Farías, from the Florencia Varela Penal Unit, and Offidani, from the Batán Prison Warden.
The opening and closing will also be broadcast on YouTube, as in the oral debate on the crime of Fernando Báez Sosa.
Facing this new trial, Lucía’s mother asked that a conviction be issued “accordingly” and that the young woman “can rest in peace”, and assured that it is “the least that has to be achieved”.
“It is painful to start everything again, so the least we have to achieve is that justice is done for Lucía, that she has her justice and that these people are detained accordingly and that they do no more harm to anyone,” he said.
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 selling drugs outside the school they attended. Lucia attended.
However, both were acquitted for 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 a new one to be held.
That resolution was confirmed a year later by the Provincial Court, despite the appeals filed by the defendants’ defense.
Offidani’s defender questioned the holding of a second debate, and expressed “extreme concern”, because he assured that “what has been installed in the various campaigns that have been carried out for quite some time does not correspond to what exists in the case. nor with what the tests show”.
Lucía’s death occurred on the morning of October 8, 2016, and 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 School Average 3 from Mar del Plata to sell him a marijuana cigarette.
The next day, Farías summoned the girl to her home on 4800 Racedo Street where she would have been drugged and abused to death.
After the first process, judges Gómez Urso and Viñas were accused of “negligence, breach of office duties and manifest partiality” by the Bicameral Commission of Procedure for the Prosecution of Magistrates of Buenos Aires.
Carnevale resigned his position to retire and thus avoid being subjected to a prosecution jury.
