Three witnesses supported the complaint of the young woman who accused the Colombian soccer player Sebastián Villa of having sexually abused her in June 2021 in a country of Ezeiza’s Buenos Aires match, and in their statements they agreed on how traumatized and depressed the victim was after the fact, reported this Wednesday judicial sources.
Two brothers and a friend of the 21-year-old who denounced the Boca player last Friday gave their testimony before the prosecutor Vanesa González, in charge of the Functional Unit of Instructions (UFI) 3 Specialized in Family and Gender Violence, Abuses Sexual and Crimes Related to Human Trafficking in Lomas de Zamora.
The testimony of the victim’s friend -to which the Télam agency had access and whose identity is being withheld- focused on the moments after the young woman gave her notice to attend her after the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of Villa el June 26, 2021, in a home of the player of the Private Neighborhood “Venado II”, of Canning.
“We went to a barbecue in Ezeiza and then to Sebastián Villa’s house (…) we were there drinking, Sebastián drinking whiskey (…). I left, then my friend wrote to me later, she told me to go back home, ”said the young woman in her testimony before the Justice. According to her statement, the young woman returned but a security person did not open the door for her, while her friend did not answer her cell phone because, as she clarified, the player “had taken it from her.”
The next day, when she met her friend, she noticed her “strange”, so she asked her what had happened the night before and it was there that the victim told her about the abuse she suffered from Villa. “(Villa) claimed that she was with her companions (from Boca Juniors, at the barbecue), she made a scene of jealousy,” the witness assured. After the denounced fact, the young woman pointed out that her friend went to the hospital to be seen and that later she “was shocked.” “She said that she didn’t want to feel his perfume anymore, she cut her hair, she didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to go out,” the witness described.
“When she went to the doctor, Sebastián’s friends called her and asked her if she needed medication and how much money would be used to solve that,” the young woman remarked in her testimony before prosecutor González. Finally, she said that a friend of the soccer player named Félix Benítez took an envelope with “five thousand dollars” to a bar, which the victim returned the next day. Lastly, the young woman stated that she has “audio and video” of the night of the event, which were sent to her by her friend before she “seized her cell phone and erased everything.”
When asked by the prosecutor, the witness testified that a man known as “Vikingo” was also present at the country house that night, whom she described as “security” from a bar in Palermo.
The young woman’s statement coincides with the one that two of the victim’s brothers also gave at the prosecutor’s office on Tuesday, who assured that after the event they began to see her “badly, with a tearful and depressed face.” “I noticed her swollen face, her neck had some kind of squeeze, like when you squeeze and your skin is marked,” said her older brother. The man indicated that he has a very strong bond with her sister, who confessed that Villa “raped her” and offered her money “so that she does not divulge it and forgive her.” Meanwhile, the younger brother added that her sister told him that Villa “assaulted and beat her” and that she had been a “victim of abuse” by her partner at the time.
The complaint against Villa was filed last Friday by the victim’s lawyer, Roberto Castillo, at Esteban Echeverría’s UFI 3. Upon receiving it, the prosecutor González took the measure of prohibiting Villa from leaving the country and approaching the victim and her family environment. On Monday, the complainant ratified her accusation and presented more evidence to the Justice, which called four witnesses to testify and ordered a series of measures, including notifying the Boca Juniors club of the complaint made by the victim.
The prosecutor also issued an official letter to the Police to report on the 911 calls made on the night of June 26, 2021, and sent an official letter to the country where the event occurred. In turn, he required the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security to report the result of the GPS in which the route made by a patrol car that apparently arrived in the country after a 911 call from a neighbor was recorded, and the clinical history of the victim to the Penna Hospital in Buenos Aires, where the young woman was treated the following day.
For his part, Villa’s lawyer, Martín Apolo, requested before the Justice of Guarantees of Lomas de Zamora, the exemption from prison of his client. In addition, the lawyer denounced at a Palermo police station that two days before the player was denounced and the case was made public, he received a call in which a male voice requested money in exchange for information and important elements that he had to defame him. . Police sources indicated to Télam that proceedings were initiated for “extortion” and that the Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor 25, Martín Mainardi, was given intervention.
This is the second complaint received by the Colombian soccer player and scorer of the Ribera club, since in April 2020 his ex-partner, Daniela Cortés, also Colombian, accused him of injuries and threats, in a case that has already been brought to trial and that could be resolved in an abbreviated process. In fact, the prosecution proposed a suspended sentence of two years in prison and now the defense must decide if they reach an agreement to avoid the oral trial.