The San Fernando Oral Criminal Court (TOP) unanimously found Eduardo Macaya Zentilli guilty of two cases of repeated sexual abuse once morest minors, events that took place in the commune of Placilla.
The verdict was read out in secret, just like the trial she faced on June 13, in an effort to protect those affected.
The O’Higgins High Complexity Prosecutor’s Office, which is seeking a 12-year prison sentence for this case, had originally accused him of four cases of repeated sexual abuse in Placilla.
“The evidence presented during the trial, plus the statement made by the accused himself (…) was sufficient in the case of Facts I and IV of the accusation to establish substantively, and beyond all reasonable doubt, the factual assumptions raised by the accusers, and with it each of the elements of the established crimes, plus the direct authorship of the accused, thus overthrowing the presumption of innocence that protects him, a standard that was not reached with respect to the charges for Facts II and III,” explained Judge Marisol López.
Specifically, he was found guilty of two crimes “committed once morest one of the victims on an undetermined date, but on the same day, when she was 8 or 9 years old,” and two others committed separately once morest a fourth victim, “between the months of April and May of the year 2022, and the second on an undetermined day between the weekend of April 6 and 9, 2023, or on an undetermined day from the last weekend of April to May 1 of the same year.”
At the same time, the court decided to acquit him in two cases: a crime “allegedly committed once morest one of the victims on an undetermined date, when she was 8 years old,” and another reported by “one of the victims on an undetermined date, between the months of June and July 2022, when she was 7 or 8 years old.”
Late last month, the trial continued with only two judges due to medical problems of one of the judges, but the unanimous ruling ruled out the possibility of the trial being declared null.
Eduardo Macaya’s son, the senator and president of the UDI, Javier Macaya, testified in the trial as a witness, but did not appear at today’s hearing, to which the convicted man arrived accompanied by his lawyer.
At the end of December 2023, lawyer Juan Carlos Manríquez, representing Macaya, appealed to the Constitutional Court with an inapplicability appeal, to avoid jail time if convicted of sexual abuse, although the court rejected the petition.
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