The former sailing coach Leandro Tulia, denounced by Olympic medalist Eugenia Bosco and three other women, He was sentenced this Friday Six and a half years in prison for sexual abuse. Although the conviction for two of them (and three facts) comes as those of the athlete and the remaining complainant were considered imposed, Bosco led the way by telling his story in a Exclusive interview with LA NACION, released on January 10th of this year.
Tulia worked for more than 20 years at Vicente López’s Yacht Club Olivos (YCO), where she directed the Optimist School, one of the training categories of her sport, for children and young people. The trial began on December 9th in San Isidro Oral Court No. 3. by Judge Verónica Di Tommaso. According to statements from victims and witnesses.
Bosco was the first sailor and public figure in this high-performance sport to denounce abuses from a trainer who had already expressed suspicions in those around him a few years ago. However, he remained in character while the complaints were made in whispers.
In dialogue with this medium The Olympic athlete made public her complaint about the abuse she suffered when she was 12 years old by his former coach of the Optimist category, dedicated to children between 6 and 15 years old. It happened on a weekend when the school children were staying at the club. Many of them came from the interior with the aim of avoiding transfers and being able to train for more hours. This conviction is based on events reported by two additional complainants.
In the club environment, they warned that the trainer manipulated his victims to obtain “favors” ranging from massages to touching. According to the witnesses, this was always done under threat and sometimes in exchange for privileges.
Tulia was once a respected trainer, but his reputation began to decline in recent years. He was considered an obsessive, authoritarian and strange man, but also a hard man and a maker of champions. The small world of sailing observed his dark side, the inappropriate comments he made to his male students about his female classmates, but watched him silently without taking any action against him.
Meanwhile, Tulia continued to work at the YCO. He served in the club’s position for two decades. A club that paid him a salary and also subsidized an apartment on Avenida Libertador in front of the facilities. Even when Bosco’s complaint became public, they remained silent: they spoke of the need to maintain “neutrality.” Even a board member told LA NACION that “they did not want an inappropriate comment to affect the development of the club.” It was only when Tulia was arrested by police in Buenos Aires in February this year that she decided to remove him from office and stop paying his rent. Today they changed their board.
While the sailing institutions decided to look the other way, the sailor’s words emboldened three more victims: women who had been Tulia’s students in their youth and now wish to remain anonymous. The main case for which Tulia was sentenced this Friday involved the complaints of two of them for three crimes of sexual abuse committed between 2012 and 2015.
There have been several attempts to discredit the victims’ story. Even Tulia and her defense brought more than 20 witnesses to the trial. Most were dismissed by Judge Di Tomasso. Some were close friends of Tulia, had never had contact with the victims and did not even live in the country. However, they made accusations on social networks aimed at the victims and journalists who reported on the case, pointing out incorrect data on the files.
At the same time, the case of Bosco and a fourth victim is on sensitive ground and is far from this judicial decision. The fact is that the events reported by both of them occurred before 2011, which is why the trial judge considered them time-barred. However, the prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor’s Office (UFE) for Gender Violence and Abuse of Vicente López, Lida Osores Soler, appealed this decision and later insisted on it before the Court of Cassation. The cause remains there for the time being.
However, the legal action is overshadowed by the enormous change Bosco has brought to sailing. His words laid the foundation for a new form of containment on the part of the institutions of discipline. Several clubs reported that they began providing psychologists to students, while others even fired coaches based on past complaints from their students. To this day, Bosco receives messages from elite athletes, adults who loved sailing as children, and others who confess to experiencing similar abuse and who found in his voice the strength they needed to speak out.
News in development*
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