María Lorena Villaverde, today’s leader of La Libertad Avanza and senator-elect for Río Negro, has become the center of one of the most resonant political controversies of the past decade. His judicial past in the United States — marked by an arrest in 2002, a canceled trial, subsequent release, and dismissal of charges in 2017 — left unanswered questions, which resurfaced more than twenty years later to block his access to the Argentine Senate.
Villaverde was born in Rio Negro in 1974, and lived part of her youth in Patagonia. At the end of the 1990s, he settled in Florida, USA, where he worked in the textile industry and developed a seemingly ordinary life: he earned a modest income, had a Social Security number, had a driver’s license, and worked in a clothing store in Miami Beach.
Returning to Argentina years later, she became involved in the emerging libertarian space, participating in local campaigns and finally being elected as a national representative in 2023. Her political rise seemed solid when she secured a seat in the Senate, but that oath never came to fruition when her judicial record in the United States became public.
Authoritarians don’t like this
The practice of professional and critical journalism is an essential pillar of democracy. This is why it bothers those who believe they are the bearers of the truth.
On July 15, 2002, in Sarasota, she was arrested along with two men accused of belonging to a cocaine marketing ring. The prosecution confirmed that the group was involved in selling and distributing more than 400 grams of this drug. The case was taken up by the federal judiciary, which indicated that it was an operation with an interstate scope or with greater implications than a simple local crime.
Two days later, on July 17, the charges were formalized: drug distribution and conspiracy to distribute drugs. This last crime has become primary, because in the United States it is sufficient for a person to have knowledge of or somehow participate in an agreement to commit a crime, even if he does not have drugs in his possession and it cannot be proven that his specific actions contributed to the crime.
Villaverde pleaded not guilty from the beginning, but was placed in judicial custody. They set a bail of fifty thousand dollars for him to obtain his freedom and continue the proceedings freely, even though the case continued its course.
After the 1980s, as Miami established itself as a gateway for cocaine into the United States, the area continued to be a heavy surveillance point under increasingly harsh federal policies. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Department of Justice expanded its investigative and intelligence powers. At the time, thousands of drug conspiracy cases were supported by indirect evidence, minimal wiretaps, or only testimony from defendants willing to reduce their sentences.
In this scenario, any association or presence in a suspicious transaction led to widespread accusations. It was common, in the face of judicial pressure, for defendants with relevant information to agree to testify against third parties in exchange for reduced sentences. This mechanism explains what happened with the other defendants in the file: they both accepted plea agreements before trial, which worsened Villaverde’s situation.
In October 2002, a popular jury found Villaverde guilty. The verdict was recorded, but his defense immediately requested a new trial, citing procedural discrepancies and disagreements over the evidence and testimony used. The court accepted this claim: it annulled the conviction and ordered a retrial.
This juncture was decisive. Although the revocation was not equivalent to acquittal, it reopened the file completely. However, the new instance is never executed. Thus began a series of delays, changes in defense counsel, and requests for additional documents. According to Villaverde’s later account, the rulings included contradictory versions of events and a violation of his right to defence, particularly because of the importance that the “conspiracy” acquired without direct physical evidence.
As the years passed, she was released from prison. He returned to Argentina and rebuilt his life outside of the process. The unexpected came in 2017: the Federal Prosecutor’s Office requested that the charges be dropped due to “insurmountable procedural paralysis” in the case. The order of acquittal was not due to proven innocence, but rather because of the impossibility of insisting on a trial after many years of judicial inactivity. Since no progress or new evidence had been made, and there was no presence of the accused on US soil, the prosecution abandoned the continuation and the court accepted the decision.
In 2019, another striking event occurred: because the evidence was not claimed, it was administratively destroyed. This deletion made any future review of the file impossible.
Closure due to “procedural paralysis” does not equal complete acquittal. Technically, the person is no longer accused, the case is invalid, and he cannot be tried again on the same facts. However, unlike a not guilty verdict, it does not include a conclusive finding of innocence or a statement about the absence of crime.
Legally, no one can use this file to prevent him from holding public office, as there is no current conviction. But from a moral and political perspective, the judicial past generates conflict: society demands transparency and a coherent story, especially when it comes to drug trafficking, a particularly sensitive crime on the Argentine public agenda.
Curriculum: From Cipoletti to Buenos Aires
Villaverde was born in San Antonio Oeste and completed high school in Cipolite. He began his career as a public accountant at Kumahoe National University, but did not finish it. In the private field, he also worked in tourism marketing, port activity and real estate development.
Although he lived in several cities, such as San Antonio, Cipolite and Buenos Aires, Villaverde settled in Las Grutas, where he devoted himself to the real estate business. She is a mother of two children and, depending on her surroundings, has always maintained a critical stance towards traditional politics.
In 2023, with the encouragement of Javier Miley’s character, she decides to enter politics and runs for Mayor of Las Grutas. Although she did not reach the position of mayor of the city, her growth in the libertarian space allowed her to be elected as the national representative of Río Negro in the elections of the same year.