Jorge Martínez, former coach of the Boca women’s team, has been sentenced to a year in prison for sexual abuse

Jorge Martinezformer coach of the Boca women’s professional football team, He was sentenced to a year in prison after being found guilty of having sexually abused Florence Marco, who was the Xeneize team’s press officer when the incident occurred. After almost three weeks of trial, the verdict was read this Wednesday by Oral Court No. 22 by Comodore Py.

“Thank you for accompanying me throughout this process. Thank you for having made this profession, this case in which I raised my voice, which is not only for me, but for all the women who have experienced the same situation with this person. The message The abuse reached all the homes and places it was intended to reach. Today justice was done for me and for all those women and men, and all those people who wrote to me during this year thanking me for being able to give a name to what they were experiencing. what the abuse was and put his life in order”, Marco said after the reading of the sentence.

During his debate on Wednesday, the prosecutor had asked for a three-year sentence for Martínez and had also denounced perjury against Jorge Bermúdez and Marcelo Delgado, members of the Boca Football Council, who had testified during the trial at the request of the defense. Meanwhile, in his argument, the coach’s lawyer, Ángel Romero, had asked for his client’s acquittal.

The complaint against Martínez was filed in March 2023. Then Florencia Marco, press officer of the club’s women’s football team, She assured that Martínez has been sexually harassing and abusing her since the beginning of 2022. He also said that all the club authorities were aware and that no one had done anything about it.

A year later, on March 22, the trial began. For five hours, 14 witnesses testified, of which 11 have an employment relationship with the club. “They only told lies”, then assured Andrea Lucangioli, Marco’s lawyer. She was referring to several members of the Football Council (Bermúdez, Delgado and Raúl Cascini), who said they were unaware of the abuse while the complainant assured that she herself informed them of the harassment against her and some players.

The sentence was scheduled for Monday 25, but Martínez’s lawyer, Ángel Romero, filed an appeal against Judge Sergio Pauczak for alleged irregularities in the process. “He deviated from his role by asking countless questions to witnesses, which is prohibited by the criminal procedure code”said Romero, a lawyer for the conservative Partido Celeste party and the anti-abortion association Más Vida.

The decision on the recusal request was left in the hands of Judge Patricia Cusmanich, of the Oral Court No. 22, which summoned both parties to the hearing which took place last Wednesday. Representing Martínez was his and Marco’s lawyer, Prosecutor Marcelo Martínez Burgosfrom the Oral Power of Attorney n. 22, since neither the woman nor her lawyer are plaintiffs in the case.

The next day, the judge rejected Judge Paduczak’s request to recusal. “We are moving forward, we are still on the right track. The defense arguments were terrifying, truly terrible. The prosecutor took only a few minutes to present the jurisprudence and corresponding articles to approve the legality of the trial by Judge Paduczak, “ the lawyer Lucangioli explained to Clarín.

Marco is 36 years old and has been working in the Boca press office for 12 (he is now on holiday). In 2022 he will take care of the communication of women’s football. But, as he reported, Martínez’s harassment and abuse immediately began., then coach of the First Division team. He also said that several players had been harassed by the coach. He claimed several times that he had reported everything internally and that no leader had taken action on the matter. For this reason he turned to the court and, only after making his complaint public, the DT was removed from his position.

The woman assured that no club authority contacted her to show solidarity or ask how she was doing. And since she filed a complaint and was granted leave, she does not receive a salary, unlike Martínez, who was separated from her position, but she continues to receive a salary. “They never tried to contact her from the club, they also sent her the license via email, they do everything via email. They underestimated the situation”his lawyer assured.