A trial against Fiorella Damiani, a school board member linked to the libertarian space, began on Tuesday in the Criminal Oral Court No. 1 of Bahía Blanca. Damiani is accused of falsely reporting two men for a presumed rape in 2017. The case originated from a complaint Damiani filed in 2017 against Joaquín Álvarez and Fernando Pereyra. The accusation led to their detention and an investigation into a very serious crime: sexual abuse with aggravating circumstances. However, over time, the investigation changed direction: the incorporation of audiovisual material and cell phone forensic analysis ultimately established a hypothesis opposite to the initial one. Damiani was detained in Bahía Blanca in April 2025. The trial is scheduled for three hearings and is expected to conclude on Thursday, February 26. For the accused, who experienced the extreme of deprivation of liberty and the social stigmatization that usually accompanies such an accusation, the process represents the possibility of an institutional closure after years of wear and tear, exposure, and difficult-to-heal wounds. The judicial hearings will focus on whether there was aggravated perjury, what evidence supports it, and what penalty corresponds in case of a conviction. It will also be a central point to determine if there were repetitions of the sworn account in later stages of the case and how that support affected the procedural situation of Álvarez and Pereyra. The case has gained significant public resonance, partly due to Damiani's political affiliation with President Javier Milei's party. In a country grappling with the need for effective channels of protection and response for sexual violence complaints, false reports have a dual impact: on the one hand, the direct harm to the unjustly accused; on the other, the corrosive effect on social credibility and the willingness of other real victims to come forward.
