On Wednesday a judge determined that Enrique Capitaine, the 22-year-old leader of the Veracruz friend group that has come to be known as the Porkys, must await his trial for rape of a minor in prison.
Controversy over the case has roiled Veracruz, where yesterday Capitaine’s mother Jaqueline Marín Lara led hundreds in a march to assert the boys’ innocence.
Marín Lara claims that politicians are behind the persecution of her son, and that the alleged victim Daphne Fernández’s father has falsely represented videos of the boys apologizing for wrong doing.
On Wednesday morning, Fernández’s grandmother María Elena Bretón de la Cruz led her second protest in support of her granddaughter and other victims of sexual assault. Though a march organized in March by Bretón de la Cruz attracted 200 supporters, today marchers numbered around 20.
Many have seized upon the Porkys case as an example of the impunity with which the rich operate in Mexico, especially privileged sons of the elite who have been dubbed “mirreyes,” after the endearment “mi rey” some parents used for their offspring.
The Porkys are comprised of four sons of wealthy parents in the privileged Costa de Oro region who were accused by 17-year-old Fernández of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and raping her on the night of January 3, 2015.
After Fernández publicly denounced the boys in a Facebook post, local authorities declined to issue warrants for their arrest. The suspects wasted little time in fleeing the country.
Later, a judge issued warrants for the arrests of three of the four boys, and asked that Interpol flag them so that any border crossing could result in their apprehension.
Capitaine was apprehended in Torreón, Coahuila last week and flown back for arraignment in Veracrúz. He faces six to 30 years in prison if convicted of a rape of a minor and is currently being held in “El Penalito,” a detention facility for criminal suspects.
The suspect’s father, Felipe Capitaine, has refused to let the boy testify, telling Radio Formula journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva in an interview that his son was innocent and that people “continue using the institutions of procurement and delivery of justice for economic gains of a personal character.”
Capitaine also made eight photographs of the alleged victim and his son public in an attempt to show that the girl was not in Capitaine’s house against her will.
@Javier_Alatorre @NTelevisa_com El 3/Ene/2015, 03:00hrs, Srita #casoDaphne en camioneta de sus amigos aguarda a irse pic.twitter.com/LHp37HsFYv
— Felipe Capitaine (@felipecapitaine) May 16, 2016
@lopezdoriga@Javier_Alatorre TESTIGO del “antro” denominado PH #Veracruz describe a #casoDaphne y amistades. pic.twitter.com/1qJGyJ0rDq
— Felipe Capitaine (@felipecapitaine) May 17, 2016
Fernández’s father Javier told the New Yorker that he tried to settle the case outside the Mexican judicial system, but when Daphne found a video he’d taken of the boys allegedly apologizing for the assault insincere, and in the face of rampant victim blaming by the public, he published the video and took the case to authorities.
“In Mexico, the last thing the system of justice provides is justice,” says Javier. “I just didn’t trust the authorities.”
Additional reporting by Joseph Reiter
