Judicial hearing marks a new turn in the process against Gustavo Penadés

By Brittany Solano

Judge Marcela Vargas decided this Wednesday to partially enable the request of the defense of former senator Gustavo Penadés to access WhatsApp messages from the phones of Romina Celeste Papasso and Paula Díaz, the trans woman who was convicted of a false complaint against Yamandú Orsi in the middle of the 2023 electoral campaign. The measure seeks to limit the information to exchanges with victims and limited to last year, with the aim of protecting the privacy of the complainants.

The hearing marked the first participation of prosecutor Isabel Ithurralde, who took over the case after the departure of Alicia Ghione, certified for stress, and replacing Mónica Ferrero. The Prosecutor's Office clarified that access will not be total, since an unrestricted opening would imply violating the rights of the victims. That is why it was restricted to specific dialogues that may have relevance to the file.

In that same instance, the Prosecutor's Office expanded the formalization against Penadés for an alleged crime of private violence linked to an event in 2014. The former senator's defense filed an appeal. He Public Ministry has a deadline until October 10 to present the formal accusation, in which he will detail the accusation, the legal qualification that he considers applicable and the evidence that he will offer before the judge.

The defense lawyers, Laura Robatto and Homero Guerrero, argued that until now They could only access reports partial, without knowing the complete content of the seized devices. They maintain that there could be conversations with confidential victims in which financial remuneration for testifying would be referred to, even with supposedly greater amounts in the event that Penadés was prosecuted.

Until now, this information remained under reserve by decision of the judge Vargas, at the request of prosecutor Ghione, which kept access to the witnesses' phones blocked. The new ruling opens a middle path that attempts to balance the need for defense with the protection of the privacy of the victims.

The hearing also became one of the last instances prior to the trial facing Penadés and Sebastián Mauvezín, both in preventive detention. It still remains for Federico Rodríguez, a police officer already convicted of collaborating with Carlos Tarocco, former director of the Santiago Vázquez prison, in an attempt to illegally obtain personal data of the victims linked to the case.