The lack of legal representation deprived the complaint of legitimacy to support the accusation when the prosecutor decided not to press charges. The case had a zigzagging judicial path. Espinoza had reached this instance with a confirmed processing by the National Appeals Court in Criminal and Correctional Matters, in a case investigating an episode that occurred in May 2021, when, according to the complaint, the mayor would have attempted to force a sexual situation during a dinner at the complainant's apartment. The file is closed without a ruling on the merits of what happened and with an ending that, for much of the opposition spectrum, leaves a bitter taste: a serious accusation that was not decided in a court due to the weight of the evidence, but due to procedural flaws that ultimately tipped the scales. This void left the file without an active accusation, as the Public Prosecutor's Office did not request the case to be elevated to trial and had supported the dismissal of the Peronist leader, which ultimately favored the accused by avoiding an oral trial and the public confrontation of evidence. The resolution was signed by Judge Inés Cantisani of the Oral Court in Criminal and Correctional Matters No. 16 of the City of Buenos Aires, who removed Rakauskas from the role of private accuser after verifying that she did not have legal representation, an indispensable requirement to sustain a complaint in a criminal process. In that initial stage, Justice had ordered restraining measures and a restraining order that, according to file precedents, would have been violated through indirect contacts and calls with the aim of getting the complainant to drop the complaint. The political-judicial turning point occurred when prosecutor Mónica Cuñarro—at the time intervening in the previous stage—argued that there was no crime and promoted the dismissal. With the public prosecutor off the scene, the continuity of the case depended exclusively on the complaint. As of this cable's closure, there are no judicial elements that prove an “arrangement,” but the fact that the case collapsed due to the technical inaction of the accuser, when the accused was on the path to an oral trial, fueled suspicions and political readings that promise to escalate. Beyond the legal debate, the impact is concrete: Fernando Espinoza avoids the oral trial, the presentation of evidence, and the contradictory examination of testimonies and expert reports. And that is where the “technical issue” that ultimately saved Espinoza was concentrated: without an accuser with lawyers, there was no one to sustain the criminal action. In the courts, the outcome opened an inevitable question. That position was supported in higher instances of the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the prosecutor before the oral court, Fernando Fiszner, noted that his role would be limited to controlling the legality of the process, but not to formulating an accusation. In that context, with the complaint left without lawyers, the file was left without a procedural engine and the possibility of advancing to the oral debate was extinguished. The ruling described a course with multiple frustrated notification attempts and successive resignations of legal representatives. For the court, the presence of a lawyer is not a minor formality: it ensures the competence of the accusation, avoids nullities, and guarantees the right of defense of the accused against a technically sustained accusation. According to the reconstruction incorporated into the decision, Rakauskas had three lawyers resign throughout the process, and the complainant also did not resort to official defenders to meet the technical requirements, despite the warnings and deadlines. This circumstance left doubts as to why Rakauskas did not present a formal defense nor sought official sponsorship to keep the accusation alive. The dismissal was resolved on a technicality—the lack of legal representation of the complainant—in a case of enormous institutional gravity and public repercussion. The ruling emphasized that the accusation had been left “in the hands of the complaint” because the prosecution did not push the case forward: there was no request to elevate it to trial, but an explicit position to dismiss. In that climate, unconfirmed versions grew about the possibility of some extrajudicial understanding between the parties that would have discouraged the continuity of the complaint. Buenos Aires, February 18, 2026-Total News Agency-TNA-The mayor of La Matanza, Fernando Espinoza, was acquitted this Wednesday in the case for alleged sexual abuse filed by his former secretary Melody Jacqueline Rakauskas, not due to a debate on the merits of the evidence, but due to a strictly procedural turn: the complainant did not present lawyers within the required deadlines, stopped responding to judicial and police notifications, and lost her status as a private complainant.
