The National Chamber of Criminal Cassation ruled this Friday to overturn the dismissal of the Kirchnerist mayor of La Matanza, Fernando Espinoza, who is accused of sexual abuse, and ordered that the case proceed to trial “as soon as possible.”
The decision also reinstated Melody Rakauskas as a complainant in the case, after she had been removed from the process.
The ruling from the country’s highest criminal court questioned the previous decision of the Oral Criminal and Correctional Court No. 16, which in February had removed the complainant from her role and ordered the case to be closed due to “lack of action.”
According to the Cassation ruling, that determination was “arbitrary,” especially for having excluded the complainant in a context where she temporarily lacked legal representation.
Fernando Espinoza
The case against Espinoza
The case dates back to May 10, 2021, when Rakauskas, who had been serving as the mayor's private secretary since late April of that year, reported that Espinoza showed up at her home under the pretext of work and attempted to sexually abuse her. The mayor, for his part, has denied the allegations since the beginning of the process.
The Cassation decision was made by majority in Chamber III, with the votes of judges Alberto Huarte Petite and Horacio Días, who agreed that the exclusion of the complainant was not properly justified.
In this regard, Judge Días stated that “the procedural misconduct of the victim at that time (generally reticent) can be explained by her situation of legal illiteracy, which placed her in a position of vulnerability.”
Fernando Espinoza
Rakauskas had been removed as a complainant during the oral trial stage after failing to appoint a new lawyer following the resignation of her legal representative on December 17, 2025. The court granted her a 72-hour deadline to appoint counsel, in a context marked by the proximity of the end-of-year holidays and the imminent start of the January judicial recess, circumstances that were now pointed out by Cassation when reviewing the decision.
In his vote, Huarte Petite emphasized that “the conduct displayed by the complainant reveals an intention to maintain her participation in the proceedings and to continue exercising the rights inherent to her status as a party.”
He added: “Therefore, the conclusion reached by the court regarding an alleged lack of interest in pursuing the criminal action does not appear to be sufficiently supported by the objective evidence included in the case file nor by the applicable legal regulations.”
The ruling included a dissent from Judge Pablo Jantus, who expressed his opinion in favor of rejecting the appeal and confirming the dismissal of Espinoza.
