Overview
- The Supreme Court of Mendoza unanimously voided a 2022 dismissal and sent the case against monks Diego Roque Moreno and Jorge Oscar Portillo to oral trial over alleged sexual abuse of a 17-year-old novice at the Cristo Orante monastery in Tupungato.
- Justices Mario Adaro and José Valerio signed the ruling, directing a public hearing after finding sufficient indicia and a strong probability of punishable involvement.
- The decision faults the lower court for a selective, biased assessment of proof and for treating the complainant’s silence and lack of physical resistance as valid consent.
- The ruling underscores an asymmetric power relationship and psychological manipulation in the monastery that, it said, undermined the complainant’s free will.
- It overturns a decision by Valle de Uco’s Collegiate Criminal Court No. 1 following appeals by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the private accuser; the Church later closed the monastery after the allegations.