A court in Tucuman province, Argentina, ordered Thursday that three of the four Velez Sarsfield (1st Div.) players accused of sexual assault be placed under house arrest for at least 90 days, with Uruguayan goalkeeper Sebastian Sosa being released conditionally. At the end of a hearing which lasted more than eight hours, judge Eliana Gómez Moreira decided that the Paraguayan José Florentín, 27 years old (3 sel.), and the Argentinians Braian Cufré, 27 years old, and Abiel Osorio, 21 years old, should spend the investigation phase of the case under house arrest.
To be released, Mr. Sosa must post bail of 50 million Argentine pesos (53,900 euros) and appear in court within 15 days. He will also be banned from leaving the country for at least 90 days. The players were arrested and placed in pre-trial detention while awaiting trial on Monday, after a complaint accusing them of sexual assault. The complainant, a 24-year-old sports journalist, said she was attacked on March 3 in a hotel room in Tucuman (north), where she had been invited by Sebastian Sosa who was staying in the establishment with the three other players.
The prosecutor in charge of the case, Eugenia Posse, had requested that Braian Cufré and José Florentín be charged with rape, Sebastian Sosa with complicity, and Abiel Osorio with simple sexual abuse, and requested the placement in pre-trial detention for each of the four accused awaiting trial, in order to avoid any hindrance to the investigation. The four footballers, who testified during the hearing, face sentences ranging from four to twenty years in prison. Sosa’s lawyer, Ernesto Baaclini, told Argentine broadcaster C5N that he was “satisfied” with the judge’s decision, but that “the case was still under investigation.”
The complainant testified this Monday before the criminal courts of Tucumán. “She sometimes broke down because she had to remember all the events she had experienced,” Patricia Neme, the plaintiff’s lawyer, told the local press. As soon as the players were arrested on Monday, the Velez Sarsfield club announced in a press release the suspension of their contracts and “reiterated its greatest concern about the facts reported which are clearly contrary to the principles and values of our institution”.
