Francisco Oneto has a specialty that does not appear in university degrees but does appear on his agenda: taking on causes that make people uncomfortable. His resume as a criminal defense attorney includes a parade of characters that are difficult to defend. Scammers, murderers, abusers, femicides and even Iranian pilots under international investigation.
One of the high points (or low points, depending on how you look at it) was the Generation Zoe case, the pyramid scam network led by Leonardo Cositorto, who promised financial freedom, spirituality and impossible returns. Oneto’s voice did not tremble when, in a debate on Twitter Spaces, he blurted out: “Yes, they hired me to defend a scam.” Cositorto ended up sentenced to 11 years in prison for illicit association and repeated fraud. The sincericide left it trending topic for hours.
He also sat on the less empathetic side in one of the most shocking cases of the last decade: the murder of Fernando Báez Sosa in January 2020 in Villa Gesell. Oneto was part of the legal team of Máximo Thomsen, one of the rugby players sentenced to life imprisonment. He participated in the trial with very high media exposure in 2023, and his sole presence in the defense ended up making him a visible face of a crime that continues to generate collective repudiation.
It wasn’t the only time. In the Érica Soriano case, Oneto joined the defense of Daniel Lagostena, the partner of the young woman who disappeared in 2010. Érica’s body was never found, but the Justice Department sentenced Lagostena to 22 years in prison as the perpetrator of the femicide. Oneto intervened in the early stages of the file, which ended up becoming an emblem of the fight against gender violence.
The list does not end there. As revealed by journalist Carlos Pagni, he would also have been a lawyer for the Iranian crew of the Emtrasur flight, the Venezuelan plane detained in Ezeiza in 2022 on suspicion of espionage and links to terrorist organizations. Oneto would have intervened in the legal defense of some of the pilots, until they were allowed to leave the country.
The pattern is clear. Oneto does not choose easy causes or comfortable clients. Nor does it try to please. And along that path, he achieved what many seek without success: to be noticed. Even if that means being, once again, on the less popular side of history.
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