Judge orders tracking of cell phone IP and the person who spread the Villa González gang rape videos

The Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services authorized authorities to take legal action, following their identification, against those responsible for disseminating images of a young gang rape victim from Villa González, Santiago.

Judge Yerixa Cabral de la Cruz authorized the Forensic Computing Department of the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) and the Department of Investigation of High-Tech Crimes and Offenses (DICAT) of the National Police to identify the IP address of the telephone that served as the source for the initial broadcast of the audiovisual material recording the sexual violence perpetrated against the victim, as well as the internet user.

The judge’s decision was issued at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The court imposed 18 months of pretrial detention as a coercive measure against six men accused of allegedly committing the gang rape.

The defendants in the case are José Alfonso Rubiera Rodríguez (Fonso), Delfri de Jesús Rodríguez (Yiyo), Edwin Manuel Castro Guzmán (El Guaro), Javier Eduardo Núñez Toribio and/or Javier Núñez (Bebé), Oniel Rafael Pichardo Martínez (Contreras), and Yamir Fernando Pérez Toribio (Ferrere).

The Public Prosecutor’s Office was represented at the hearing by prosecutors Gladisleny Núñez, Melania Bautista, and Elvin Ventura.

“We are facing a serious incident, one that is devastating to all women and to society. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken matters into its own hands and launched an investigation. In the following steps and procedural stages, we will present the evidence we have begun to gather,” said Gladisleny Núñez, director of the Comprehensive Care Unit for Victims of Gender-Based Violence, Domestic Violence, and Sexual Crimes at the Santiago Prosecutor’s Office.

She noted that the incident has a greater significance because it involved a group that committed the alleged crimes, which in itself represents an attack on the victim’s sexual safety when faced with such a large number of attackers.

The judge, upon hearing the parties’ arguments, ruled that, based on the evidence made available to her by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the facts described in the request for measures, the victim’s testimony, and other expert and video evidence, she found that there were elements linking all of the defendants.

In addition to the prison sentence, which the defendants must serve at the Mao Correction and Rehabilitation Center in Valverde, the court authorized the pretrial deposition of evidence, a tool that will allow the victim’s testimony to be collected to prevent her exposure and revictimization.

In the request for coercive measures, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is filing provisional charges against the six defendants for violations of Articles 265, 266, 309-1, and 331 of the Dominican Penal Code, as amended by Law 24-97 on Gender-Based Violence; as well as for violations of Articles 8 and 23 of Law 53-07, which cover the following offenses: criminal association, aggravated violence against women, rape, reproduction and distribution of images, and sexual assault by electronic means, to the detriment of the young victim.

The investigation into the events, which occurred in March of this year, was carried out in collaboration with the Police Criminal Investigations Directorate (Dicrim), whose officers participated in the pursuit and subsequent arrest of the six men who sexually assaulted the defenseless victim.

The coercive measures instance establishes that the events occurred at a residence in the La Javilla community, in the Villa González municipality. The victim was taken there under the deception that she would be taken to a health center by the defendant Pérez Toribio and another man, who is a fugitive.
The Santiago Prosecutor’s Office has identified and is investigating the individuals who were with the victim at a commercial establishment located in Palmar Abajo, in the municipality mentioned above.