The Brazilian Public Ministry presented on April 6 before the Federal Criminal Judge of the Judicial Subsection of São Paulo a formal accusation against the actor Juan Darthés for the crime of aggravated rape against the actress Thelma Fardin. The events occurred in 2009 in Managua, where the cast of the telenovela Patito Feo – of which Darthés and Fardin were part – was finishing a tour.
The The Nicaraguan Prosecutor’s Office formally requested Brazil last year to extradite Darthés, country where the actor has nationality. However, the laws of the South American country do not allow its citizens to be extradited.
“It is a formal accusation presented by the Public Ministry of Brazil against the actor, just as there was a formal accusation (in Nicaragua) and an international arrest warrant,” the lawyer Eilyn Cruz Rojas, who is handling the case, mentioned to LA PRENSA. in Managua.
Cruz Rojas explained that the process in the Brazilian courts was opened after the Argentine Public Ministry sent the accusatory elements, taking into account the principle of non-extradition that Brazil has. “The State of Brazil was not going to promote impunity, (it says) ‘I don’t give you up but I do judge you,'” said Cruz.
Read also: Thelma Fardin launches a book in which she recounts her rape in Nicaragua
About the process in Nicaragua
In December 2018, Fardín publicly and judicially denounced Darthés for raping her in 2009, when she was 16 and he was 45 and they were on a tour of Nicaragua. The accusation took place in the Tenth Criminal Court of Audiences of Managua.
In October 2019, Judge Celso Urbina ordered the arrest of Juan Darthés, who fled to Brazil to evade justice. In November of that same year, Interpol ordered the international capture of the actor for “aggravated violation” and on September 30, 2020, the Supreme Court of Justice admitted the request of the Public Ministry Nicaraguan for the extradition request.
The lawyer Cruz Rojas explained that both the accusation in Nicaragua and the Interpol arrest warrant are still in force. “The actor either faces a criminal process in Brazil without leaving there, or he leaves Brazil and has all the risk that he could eventually be captured outside Brazil and prosecuted in Nicaragua,” he said.
He added that if he decided to leave Brazil due to a blind spot, he could still be captured and extradited to Nicaragua. “Darthés, either submits, or submits to justice.”
The long road to justice
Fardin, who is now a reference in the fight for victims of abuse and rape to obtain justice, assured the Infobae medium that the opening of the process in Brazil “is a conquest.”
“The process is exhausting, re-victimizing, financially very difficult to sustain, emotionally the wound lasts over time and does not allow you to think about your life. I have to be busy not only with how I can develop my personal, artistic and professional life, but with how to carry out a legal case. And that takes a lot of time and energy but it’s these milestones that make me say ‘well, it was worth the effort’. And it is also worth it, because a lot of pain is also spent in these processes that have very high personal costs, ”he told the outlet.
The lawyer who handles the case in Nicaragua maintains constant communication with the actress and assured that “Thelma is empowered, she is a great reference today, not only in Argentina, but at the Latin American level of victims who have broken the silence and she hopes that their case can continue to be done and justice and it can be carried out in the Brazilian courts or in the case of Nicaragua ”.
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