First report

In 2013 the deaf Daniel Sgardelis made a first public appeal through YouTube but, having no impact, presented his own personal complaint in the court in 2016 for the humiliations suffered in the Próvolo Institute of La Plata between 1981 and 1995.

Location

Instituto Antonio Provolo para Sordos (Mendoza and La Plata).

Number of victims

Between 20 and 29 (depending on the source), from 5 to 16 years old.

Term of abuses

38 years (from 1981 to 2016).

Defendants

14 persons: priests Nicola Corradi and Horacio Corbacho, nuns Kosaka Kumiko and Asunción Martínez and 10 other workers in the institution. The main defendant, Italian priest Nicola Corradi, 83, had already been accused of abuses at the Provolo Institute in Verona, Italy, long before arriving in Argentina.

In 2018, Jorge Bordón, known as 'the altar boy', confessed to 11 crimes of sexual abuse, including rape, against five victims and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The other defendants deny the charges.

The nun Kumiko Kosaka is in house arrest after having paid a bond of two million Argentine pesos (just under 33,000 euros). She claims to be innocent and has accused sign-language interpreters of deaf witnesses of distorting their sayings, an accusation that was rejected. A 20-year-old deaf girl who had been abused died of an epileptic seizure just 24 hours after knowing that the nun would be out of prison to complete a house arrest. This young woman has a 4-year-old son whose father is unknown and the family believes he is one of the defendants.

The Provolo Institute in Mendoza was closed in 2016 after the reports. A police search of the institute found pornography, condoms and birth control pills. After that, the Vatican appointed two priests to conduct an internal investigation that is still ongoing. Prosecutors say church officials in Argentina have declined their request to share the findings.

About 30 people testified at the trial. The complaint and the Public Prosecutor's Office consider Jorge Bordón's conviction to be a very important antecedent when it comes to confirming the aberrant facts that happened in the school.

Finally, on November 25, 2019, Italian priest Nicola Corradi was sentenced to 42 years in prison, priest Horacio Corbacho to 45 years in prison and a gardener to 18 years.