Overview
- The Sala B of the Tribunal de Impugnación Penal in La Pampa upheld a lower-court ruling and rejected a defence request from Abigail Páez to review her sentence computation for early release.
- The written decision was issued on October 26 and was signed by judges María Paola Frigerio and Mauricio Federico Piombi, who confirmed Judge Edgardo Javier Trombicki’s prior denial.
- Magdalena Espósito Valenti and Abigail Páez were convicted in February 2023 for the 2021 killing of five-year-old Lucio Dupuy, and Páez was found guilty of aggravated homicide together with sexual abuse, facts the court said make her legally ineligible for benefits.
- Páez’s lawyer, María Silvina Blanco Gómez, argued the review was needed to protect her client’s rights and prospects for social reinsertion, but the court dismissed those claims as incompatible with the crimes’ legal classification.
- The ruling leaves Páez serving a life sentence with no temporary release or parole options under current law and keeps the case at the center of ongoing public debate about child protection and institutional failures.