Alperovich spoke at the trial against him for sexual abuse: “This killed me”

The hearing lasted almost six hours. The victim testified for more than two and answered questions from each of the parties. She gave details of the ordeal she went through during the year and a half she worked for the former senator and former governor of Tucumán, Joseph Alperovich.

The former Tucumán leader arrived at the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) No. 29, located in Paraguay 1536 along with his lawyer, Augusto Garrido and his four children.

He hugged Sara Alperovich and simply waited for the hearing to begin.

Around 11 o’clock, Judge Juan Ramos Padilla began the session and the request for elevation to trial was read.

The complainant, daughter of Alperovich’s cousin, reported him in 2019 for sexual abuse. In total there were 9 events: three cases of sexual abuse – two of them attempted – and six of sexual violence aggravated by sexual contact, according to the accusation.

These abuses, according to the accusation, were committed under “intimidation, abuse of a relationship of dependency, power and authority.”

The head of the Prosecutor General’s Office No. 27 before the TOC, Sandro Abraldes, intervenes as trial prosecutor; The defense is headed by Augusto Nicolás Garrido, and the complaint is headed by Pablo Rovatti, from the Legal Assistance and Sponsorship Program for Victims of Crime. Also present was the head of the Specialized Prosecutorial Unit for Violence against Women (UFEM), Mariela Labozzetta, who together with the prosecutor Santiago Vismara was in charge of the accusation.

Alperovich listened to the accusation against him without too many gestures. He looked at the ground for moments, then to the side. He heard the details of the rapes and abuse described by the woman who was his assistant for a year and a half during the investigation stage.

Shortly before noon Ramos Padilla offered to testify and Alperovich said: “Mr. Judge, I am going to ignore the recommendations of my lawyers and I am going to say: I want the truth. This killed me and I want justice. “I ask you to pay attention, the prosecutor, Mr. Judge, to all the evidence.”

He clarified that he is an accountant and businessman, that he is married to Beatriz Rojkes de Alperovich, who did not accompany him during the trial, and that he has four children and once grandchildren.

He also acknowledged having three companies from which they withdraw “more or less 5 million per month.”

As anticipated when entering, he will declare and answer questions once the 80 witnesses cited, among whom there are national and Tucumán officials and legislators.

According to the complaint against Alperovich, the abuses and attacks were judged to have occurred between December 14, 2017 and March 26, 2018, in properties located in San Miguel de Tucumán, Yerba Buena (Tucumán) and in an apartment in Puerto Madero. . .

The second hearing is scheduled for February 15.

We estimate that it will last until mid-year because they will only hold one hearing per week.

“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 placed her as a mere object of sexual satisfactionof objectification, subjecting her in a violent, outrageous and degrading manner, doing so over the course of a little more than three months,” the prosecutor’s accusation described.

Five years passed from the time the young woman dared to report until Alperovich finally went to trial. The then senator never resigned from his seat and waited on leave for his term to end in 2021. Only then did the investigation against him advance.

The young woman was not present in the same room as her attacker and, after noon, she testified for more than two hours and answered questions from the parties. The defense will try to throw away the accusation.

She is currently in an advanced pregnancy and travels from Tucumán to participate in the hearings. The court had offered to postpone her statement until after the birth but she decided to do so at the beginning.

To give his testimony, he asked that the room be vacated and Alperovich watched the victim’s statement via video call, in an alternative room. They also ordered the press and public to leave the room to preserve the victim.

“Do not write to convince anyone of anything. I am here against the oppression of silence and for need to get my life back, 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 José Jorge Alperovich, my second uncle and boss, by whom I was sexually, physically and psychologically violated,” wrote the then 29-year-old girl when she filed the complaint against Alperovich.

“The overwhelming 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,” described in that letter.

“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 at my house, there would be more people around, and dissimulation and work would take him away from me. He would get tired of me, of me not wanting, of me being ‘asexual’ as he called me. But his fixation did not stop, for a long time he wanted more and more often, with more desire, with more strength, with more violence because of my resistance,” the young woman described.

Alperovich’s defense was in the hands of Mariano Cuneo Libarona, current Minister of Justice who, upon taking office, delegated the defense to another lawyer from his firm.

During the five years that he forced the investigation, the former governor of Tucumán tried several times to have the cause investigated in his province.

As the events would have been committed in both the City of Buenos Aires and the province of Tucumán, the case was processed in both jurisdictions. But after a resolution by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, it was resolved that everything be investigated by the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 35.

In his province, Alperovich has several pending cases which, according to their complaint, They will not advance due to their interference in local politics.

One of them is file 36469/2019, led by prosecutor Carlos Sale, from prosecutor’s office No. 2 specialized in homicides. It was initiated by order of justice within the framework of the trial by the crime of Paulina Lebbosa young woman brutally murdered.

His body was found on March 11, 2006 on Route 341, at kilometer 3, in Tapia, about 30 kilometers from the City and was one of the most resonant in the province of Tucumán.

Only in 2019 were five former officials of José Alperovich convicted but for cover-up. This is the former Secretary of Security Eduardo Di Lella (sentenced 6 years); former Police Chief Hugo Sánchez (6 years); his second, Nicolás Barrera (5 years old); the former manager of the Northern Regional Héctor Brito (5 years) and the former officer Waldino Rodríguez (3 years).

In February 2021, days before the case expired, the Supreme Court of Justice of Tucumán confirmed the sentences, ordered the arrest of the accused and that those responsible for the crime be investigated.

In the ruling of the second trial for cover-up in the crime of Paulina, the Court had ordered that investigates 28 other people.

Among them, the most important, for “illegal deprivation of liberty and aggravated homicide.” In that instance he ordered that César Soto, Paulina’s ex-partner and the father of her daughter Victoria, be investigated for the possible commission of the crime. And to Sergio Kaleñuk, the son of José Alperovich’s Government Secretary at the time of the crime, and the person responsible for the “sons of power” being singled out for the case.

Also, in another file, he ordered that José Alperovich be investigated for failure to comply with the duties of a public official and for spearhead cover-up maneuvers that prevented finding those responsible for the crime.

These cases, despite the permanent presentations of the Lebbos family, never progressed and the crime remains unpunished.