The Oral Criminal Court (TOC) I of La Plata today sentenced the music teacher Lucas Manuel Puig (44) to 35 years in prison for the crime of sexual abuse and corruption of minors in prejudice of two children attending Kindergarten of San Benjamin School of La Plata, between late 2009 and early 2010.
In a climate of tension due to the presence of relatives of the victims and teachers who supported the professor, judges Hernán Decastelli, Cecilia Sanucci and Ramiro Fernández Lorenzo sentenced Puig, dand it is unanimousfor sexual abuse with seriously outrageous carnal access, aggravated by being in charge of his education, in ideal competition with corruption of minors aggravated by being in charge of his education, and they ordered his immediate arrest, since he had come to trial in freedom.
“We are very satisfied with the decision, justice has been done following so many years in which the victims grew with the process; I do not remember that a teacher convicted of aggravated abuse has received a similar sentence”, Martín Bolpe, representative of one of the complaining families, told Télam, adding that, throughout the trial, “The minors were heard, who, given their current age, were able to tell in detail the abuses to which they were subjected by Puig.”
For Bolpe, the ruling “speaks of the need to listen to the victimswho, in this case, due to their young age, are extremely vulnerable” and also that “It is a message for educational institutions that must develop and implement efficient protocols in order to prevent events like these from being repeated.”
During the arguments, the group of lawyers representing the complaining families had requested between 20 and 40 years in prison, and the prosecutor Martín Chiorazzi had requested a sentence of 25 years for the music teacher.
For the prosecutor, it was proven that, following the winter holidays of 2009 and until the start of classes in 2010, Puig abused at least two students of 3 and 4 years of age who attended the morning shift of the School’s Kindergarten San Benjamín, located in the town of Los Hornos.
As aggravating factors of the sentence, the plurality of victims, the extent of the damage caused to them and their families, and the age of the minors were assessed.
In those days, the prosecutor, in addition, had requested the immediate accusation of the teacher in charge of one of the rooms of the garden, Silvina Díaz, whom he considered co-author of the crimes of aggravated sexual abuse and corruption of minors.
In his ruling, the court decided to send certified copies to the prosecutor’s office in turn so that they carry out the investigations regarding their actions.
“From the evidence produced during the debate, it is clear that teacher Díaz is very committed,” Bolpe stated.
Puig was convicted of “sexual abuse with seriously outrageous carnal access, aggravated by being in charge of their education, in ideal competition with corruption of minors aggravated by being in charge of their education, who, in turn, concur in a real way with sexual abuse. with seriously outrageous carnal access, doubly aggravated for being in charge of education and for the use of a weapon in ideal competition with corruption of minors, aggravated for being in charge of education”.
This was the second oral trial once morest the teacher; in the first, developed in 2015, he was acquitted by a majority, but Cassation declared the annulment and ordered a new debate.
At a press conference, the lawyers Flavio Gliemmo, Marcelo Bottindari and Julio Beley, all representatives of the victims, considered that in the first trial “the circumstances of time were not taken into account”, but they stressed that “in this new extension there were no doubts and it was convincingly proven that Puig had been the abuser and it was proven with a much more serious crime than the one with which he had been prosecuted in the first moment.
In this sense, they highlighted that “the minors, in this trial, were 16 years old” and that their “statements were very clear and decisive when the court made this resolution”, given that in the first trial they were 5 and 6 years old. .
