Horacio Norberto Asensio, a field hockey coach arrested in Mar del Plata amid allegations of historical sexual abuse against minor players in Monte Hermoso, faces a formal dismissal and freedom request filed by his defense attorney Maximiliano De Mira before prosecutor Diego Torres.
The legal context surrounding Horacio Norberto Asensio changed significantly as defense counsel Maximiliano De Mira submitted a four-page formal written petition to prosecutor Diego Torres. The filing demands the immediate dismissal and release of the detained hockey coach, triggering a procedural battle now resting in the hands of Guarantee Judge Marisa Promé. Asensio, who was apprehended a week ago at his residence in the Bosque Peralta Ramos neighborhood of Mar del Plata while actively coaching the Sporting club, faces accusations tied to incidents alleged to have occurred over a decade ago.
The Legal Strategy and the Prescription Debate
The core of the defense argument centers squarely on the statute of limitations. Attorney De Mira contends that the criminal action against Asensio is fully prescribed due to the passage of time. To support this position, the defense draws a direct parallel to the legal framework utilized in the case of Alberto Martín Del Valle, arguing that the passage of more than ten years since the alleged events voids the current viability of prosecution.
Crucially, the defense brief seizes upon the prosecution’s own framing of the charges. De Mira emphasized that prosecutor Diego Torres treats the allegations as a continuous crime rather than separate real concursus offenses. According to the four-page filing, the indictment does not distinguish isolated, independent occurrences. Instead, it targets an alleged abusive pattern spanning from the time the complainant was 13 or 14 years old until she reached 17. By locking the prosecution into this continuous-offense definition, the defense attempts to force a legal threshold where the entire timeline falls outside the active statutory window.
Prosecutorial Pushback and Judicial Review
Despite the calculated maneuvers of the defense team, the prosecution has pushed back firmly against the motion. Prosecutor Torres registered an immediate opposition to the request for dismissal and liberation. Because of this deadlock, the matter required escalation to the judicial branch, landing on the desk of Guarantee Judge Marisa Promé.
Judge Promé now holds the responsibility of evaluating whether the continuous-offense framework warrants a total dismissal of the charges or if the legal action remains active. The procedural timeline has moved swiftly since Asensio’s arrest in Mar del Plata’s wooded Peralta Ramos district. Following his apprehension last week while directing Sporting, the coach initially exercised his right to remain silent during his appearance at the fiscalia, represented at the time by attorney Carlos Carnevale. The subsequent change in legal representation—culminating in De Mira taking over the defense—preceded this aggressive push for immediate freedom.
Historical Context and Institutional Precedents
The current legal crisis does not exist in a vacuum. The allegations connected to Asensio’s tenure involving minor players in Monte Hermoso carry deep historical echoes within the sport’s administrative bodies. Public records indicate that accountability questions surfaced years prior, notably when the Confederación Argentina de Hockey submitted a formal presentation in 2014 to the Secretaría Nacional de Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia demanding investigations into similar accusations against the coach.
As Judge Promé reviews the arguments presented by De Mira and the counter-arguments from the fiscalia, the broader field hockey community watches closely.
| Metric / Stage | Details |
|---|---|
| Accused Individual | Horacio Norberto Asensio |
| Current Defense Attorney | Maximiliano De Mira |
| Prosecuting Official | Dr. Diego Torres |
| Adjudicating Judge | Guarantee Judge Marisa Promé |
| Location of Arrest | Peralta Ramos Forest, Mar del Plata |
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