During the defense argument in the trial for the murder of Ferdinand Baez Sosalawyer Hugo Tomei sought to demonstrate that the crime, for which the prosecution requests life imprisonment for the 8 young people, does not contain the aggravating circumstance of treachery or premeditation, and that it was a “homicide in a fight” or, failing that, of a “preterintentional homicide”. “With the sentence they are serving, after three years they could be released,” warned Tomei, since the defendants have been detained since 2020. These were the most important points on which his argument was based:
“They went to eat because they had no dimension of the fact.” Tomei alleged that the rugby players went to a fast food outlet after the incident, precisely because they did not think they had killed Báez Sosa.
“They filmed their own crime, a criminal enterprise does not work like that.” The defender argued that if the rugbiers really had intended to commit a murder, they would not have made film records of the fact and that this would be evidence to incriminate them.
“They handed over the cell phone to the police with the password”According to Tomei, the defendants made their cell phones available to the police, with which they had recorded the event, without putting up any resistance, which would support the hypothesis that they did not want to perpetrate the crime in a planned manner and that, realizing that it had been a homicide, they made themselves available to the official forces.
“Deciduous”. Lucas Pertosi He approached the scene after what happened and sent a WhatsApp message to his friends saying that Fernando Báez Sosa “expired.” For Tomei, it is a phrase that he said “without awareness” of what happened and it is not proof of premeditation or treachery.
Blas Cinalli’s DNA on Báez Sosa’s nails. According to Tomei, the prosecution “cannot explain it.” “It is the accusers who have to bring the answer,” said the rugbiers’ lawyer. According to him, if Báez had that DNA on his nails, it is because he “hit” Cinelli. “It will be that Fernando’s friends did not see everything that happened,” Tomei explained.
The previous fight. In his plea, Tomei stated that inside the bowling alley the brique there had been a brawl prior to the beating, with which Fernando Báez Sosa was “attentive” and with the possibility of “taking up arms” in the face of the aggression, which is why, according to what the defender stated, the possibility of the attack would be ruled out treacherously.
media pressure: Tomei blamed the narrative installed by the media about the case, which characterized the rugbiers as “savages” who had carried out a “manhunt” with Fernando, vitiating the reconstruction of the events and, with it, the correct treatment. of the case. “How to stay out of the loop when there is a gigantic wave of information with only one direction, which is condemnation,” Tomei said.
“Plan to kill could not be proven”: According to Tomei, the act constitutes a homicide in a fight, or simple homicide with eventual or intentional intent: that is, the rugby players beat Báez, but without the intention of killing him. Nor could it be proven that in the minutes before Fernando left the bowling alley the rugby players ordered the murder.
Nullity of tests. Tomei requested the annulment of the seizure of the defendants’ cell phones and clothing – which in many cases had Báez Sosa’s blood stains – alleging that at the time of the kidnapping “they were not informed of the right that they were assisted.” According to the “poisoned fruit tree doctrine” ill-gotten evidence cannot be used as proof of charge.
“I was forgetting something important. This not following a line of reading…”, ironized Tomei at one point in the allegation. It was a Chicana for the lawyer of the Báez Sosa family, Fernando Burlando, with whom Tomei had a crossover in the audience yesterday. When Burlando had already been reading his argument for several minutes, Tomei interrupted him to point out that “the law prohibits the reading” of the pages and requested that he print “agility” to his intervention. “I would prefer that it be adjusted to the pleading code so that it is a little more fluid,” Tomei argued. However, the judge allowed Burlando to read the pages, after he excused himself, pointing out that it was “impossible to remember” everything the pages said. “I’m going to do the same to you, doctor,” Tomei warned Burlando.
