exposed fracture. That image could graph what unleashed this week an investigation into the sexual abuse of minors that involves figures from the television star system. The former Big Brother was accused directly Marcelo Corazza by two witnesses of confidential identity. Indirectly, the door that was opened by his arrest reached John Martin Rago, nicknamed Jey Mammonone of the drivers of the rock of morphi. And it doesn’t stop. He is already in front of the dressing room of a driver “who travels the world”, according to the new media complaint from Lucas Welcome —who already exposed Rago— and who now points against Alejandro Wiebe, popularized by his fantasy name: Marley.
Because trafficking and pedophilia networks exist, but they are obviously not visible. Until victims appear who denounce and expose them. In this case, while the irruption of complaints —public and judicial— began to throw like dominoes, glittering names of television scaffoldingthe exposition of the cases installed the debate: not only about the veracity of the allegations —which is central—, also on the place of the victims and their “innocence or guilt”under the euphemism of “consent“even when it comes to minors.
Social morality, sustained by the prevalence of television, was put in check. And among specialists in childhood and adolescence, the certainty about the possibilities offered by a tool such as the ESI (Childhood Sex Education)to prevent minors from having to accede to the wishes of those who hold power, and abuse that.
The cell in which he is detained today Marcelo Corazza little resembles “the house” of Big Brotherfrom which he emerged crowned with glory: he was the first winner of the most famous reality show in Argentina when the format came to revolutionize the medium, in 2001. Those were hard years for the country, and the identification with the “encierro” of reality television —one of the definitions of the genre—, in many cases followed the line of being “isolated” from the harsh socioeconomic reality of the moment.
The case Welcome
One of the reasons why children fall into trafficking networks is economic. “They do anything for two pesos” laments one of the voices on TV, in defense of the victims. The case of Benvenuto reinforces this: the young man, now 27 years old, reported having had a relationship with a “musician and TV host” who was 32 years old, when he was 14, 15, 16 and 17… he explained on the program in the afternoon (América TV) hosted by Karina Mazzocco. There she told of the chats in which Corazza would have sent her sexual videos, years ago. And although she did not give the name of the driver she was referring to, that midnight it was already viral that it was John Martin Rago, alias Jey Mammon, the most promising —although he is not a young promise— among the conductors of current TV. And protected by the media coverage of the cases, This Saturday, in a live Instagram, Benvenuto charged against another Telefé driver: “The one who travels the world.”
Regarding the case against Rago, Benvenuto explained on TV that “it prescribed, that’s why I denounce it publicly,” he explained, who was a victim of the trafficking network known as the “boy lovers” that he orchestrated Jorge Corsi. Benvenuto went to court in 2020, with the complaint that was unsuccessful. In 2021, Rago was dismissed by Judge Walter Candela for “prescribing” the criminal action. The events would have occurred in 2006, a decade before the law was enacted that annulled the limit on the time period, to investigate crimes against the sexual integrity of minors. “The law is not retroactive,” reasoned the judge in the dismissal of Rago.
Today this law —the 27.206— allows these causes not to prescribe. Strictly speaking, they can take as the start date of the same, the moment of the complaint, not the crime. “It gives you more time to report and it is important because the abused child is armed with a trauma that is not easy to untangle, it can take a long time for that”Luciana Wiederhold, a theater teacher in secondary schools, with a specialization degree in ESI, explains to this newspaper.
Why didn’t he report it before? Ask those who doubt the victims. “Until now we did not have a structure where we could enable the word of children and young people for these cases. Until recently people said: stay out. Now we have the ESI, and a law”, details the teacher. Thus, abused children, due to their economic vulnerability most of the time, today, as adults, can denounce what happened in the past. Because the networks grow “on the structural basis of capitalism and its reflection, which is patriarchy,” says Wiederhold, also a clown artist.
“ESI allows us to talk about it, it does not naturalize it, it works on the idea that it is not normal for people to touch their private parts, they are parameters to begin to understand what is happening, and to be able to talk about it”adds Wiederhold. And when Benvenunto talks about what happened to him, adds the teacher, “it enables a lot of people, to whom the same thing happened, to begin to repair that trauma, and talking about it is a path in that sense,” he argues. She takes a position for the victims and warns: “Not telling publicly everything that happened is important,” she explains, “because it spreads morbidity and perversion.”
public exposure
These denunciations initially break the frame from which the celebrities of television shine brightly: the board jumps, the protection that fame grants and the impunity that it confers falls. The cases involve high exposure, mediated by TV, and explode public opinion and the star system with equal intensity. And after the arrest of “a man from TV” —Corazza—, the camouflage under which they operate is broken, in Buenos Aires and in the anonymity of the big city —in this case also the province of Buenos Aires and Misiones— , child trafficking networks and pedophilia.
The overexposure forced the TV industry to take a position in defense of the victims. He stated it, before the situation of Rago (Mammón) was known, the driver Santiago del Moro, who leads the Debatesatellite program of Big Brother, on the Telefé screen. Del Moro preferred not to read the channel’s statement about Corazza’s suspension from work —until the process is defined— and asked that if he is guilty, the full weight of the law falls on him. He Debate It did not air this Friday, even though the reality show ends on Monday. All a climactic moment.
Corazza’s arrest responds to two complaints from people who have no relationship with each other but detail similar situations of abuse, in an investigation that has lasted six months. In the case, Andrés Fernando Charpenet, Raúl Ignacio Mermet and Francisco Angelotti were also arrested, the latter indicated as head of the “illicit association”, destined to “trafficking in persons and corruption of minors”.
The raids, carried out in Tigre, General Rodríguez, General Pacheco, and in Oberá, province of Misiones, trace the sordid future of the victims. “Tempted” with clothes, shoes, even “trips to Disney”, so that they accede to the abuse first and then to the exercise of prostitution orchestrated by the network of pimps.
The four defendants have already been investigated by Judge Javier Sánchez Sarmiento, in charge of Investigating Court 48, and by prosecutor Patricio Lugones. They refused to answer questions. They said nothing about the way in which they recruited the children, nor about the chats in which they talked about “the merchandise”, “caviar” or “veal”, nor about the pacts of silence that they sealed with gifts or trinkets : glasses, a backpack.
According to the case, Angelotti recruited minors, corrupted them and inserted them into the world of prostitution. He offered them in the streets of Once, Caballito, Parque Centenario, the places of offer and delivery of children. According to those who provided the first clues in the case, the defendants “work with children between the ages of 11 and 14” for more than 20 years. Therefore, it is possible that more witnesses, now of legal age, will present themselves, confirm sources close to the cause.
A man nicknamed Mammon
On the cusp of stardom, a man nicknamed Mammón”, a musician and charismatic driver, is accused of abuse, in a case dating back years and closed in 2021: it prescribed. But the prescription, Jorge Rial points out opportunely in C5N, speaks of the time that passed, not of an “acquittal” due to lack of evidence. This validates the public denunciation of Benvenuto, who speaks of a relationship sustained for four years. “At the age of 18 they leave the market, because they are no longer appetizing for the perverse market of child abuse” underlines a specialist.
In this web of tensions, the reparation that opens the possibility of talking about the case mobilizes other victims. Thus, the repercussion generated by Corazza’s arrest moved Benvenuto’s television testimony in a process, dizzying by the way. “My mom has been aware. My mom would call her house to ask: ‘Did Lucas arrive?’ He was 32 and I was 14″, he said. He did not give the driver’s name until his story went viral. And the two cases began to intertwine, already far from the set. And to expand in concentric circles that the driver, nicknamed Mammon, considers it “part of a campaign against him.” This was confirmed in a statement where he pointed out that it is “a false episode in much of its content.”
The variable Natacha Jaitt
The media repercussion of these cases is recovered from the TV archive, the complaint of Natacha Jaitt —model and VIP escort— in Mirtha’s night in 2018. There, in the very Legrand program, on Channel 13, Jaitt denounced the existence of trafficking networks and sexual abuse of minors; he talked about the inferiors of soccer clubs; he played with the initials of famous names. A year later, she was found dead, in an episode where doubts about “death by overdose” intersect with a “possible murder”. Her brother, Ulises Jaitt, states: “My sister was killed by the mafias, for denouncing them”. And he adds, by way of warning: “Take care of Corazza.”
