BUENOS AIRES ( Associated Press) — The woman who had denounced Colombian striker Sebastián Villa, a member of the Boca Juniors club, for sexual abuse, violence and attempted murder confirmed the accusation in court.
The alleged victim, whose identity is preserved, appeared on Monday to testify at the prosecutor’s office specializing in family and gender violence, sexual abuse and related crimes in the Lomas de Zamora district, a southern suburb of Buenos Aires.
Her lawyer Roberto Castillo confirmed to journalists that the woman “ratified and expanded” before judicial officials the criminal complaint she had filed on Friday in writing against the 25-year-old soccer player, who is facing another legal case for gender-based violence against a former partner.
“It’s wrong, scared to death,” said the lawyer about his client.
According to the complaint filed on Friday, a woman indicated that Villa, with whom she had had a love relationship since the beginning of 2020, raped her and beat her on June 26, 2021 at the player’s home, in a closed neighborhood located south of the Argentine capital.
“He was caressing me on the face, when suddenly he becomes violent, he squeezes my jaw and the back of my neck, slaps me and says ‘did you like my colleagues?'”, referring to a dinner they had shared shortly before with other members of the Boca squad and in which Villa would have “ingested a large amount of alcohol.”
He explained that the player did not let him go and locked the door of the room they were in. Then he “began to abuse me, hitting me a few times and covering my mouth with his hand, at which point I made some scratches on him, as a result of wanting to get out of that situation.”
“He abused me, at first from the front (being on my back), and ended up turning me face down, almost without letting me breathe, since between screaming and crying I was running out of air. To this was added his body on top of me and his hand in his mouth, which was aggravated when he turned me around and pressed my head against the bed… I was running out of air and without strength throughout the abuse”, reported the attack.
Due to this episode, the woman’s lawyers also denounced Villa for attempted murder.
The woman assured that after the fact she called a friend to go look for her. Five days later, she showed up at a hospital ward with symptoms “compatible with sexual abuse.”
“I left crying without making any complaint… I was not in physical or emotional condition to do it, since I still had a fear that paralyzed me,” he said.
In another paragraph of the brief, she stated that days later she had lunch with Villa and he offered her $5,000 not to report him, which she did not accept.
Around that date, Villa removed his belongings from the club and traveled to Colombia. He cited health problems of his mother and an alleged breach by the Boca board to transfer him to Europe. He was suspended and returned to play 100 days later.
Villa was the starter in Boca’s triumph on penalties against Racing Club on Saturday for one of the semifinals of the Professional League Cup.
So far neither the player nor the club have commented on the complaint.
At the beginning of 2020, Villa’s then partner — Daniela Cortés — denounced him for violence and spread images of the blows to his face through social networks. A prosecutor’s office specialized in this class of crimes began an investigation and concluded that there was evidence to put the player on trial, for which a date has not yet been set.
