Former First Lady Fabiola Yañez filed a legal complaint against former President Alberto Fernández for domestic violence on Tuesday, according to her lawyer Juan Pablo Fioribello. 

“She told me she had suffered physical blows from the former president and that she couldn’t stand it anymore, that she had been feeling anguished, she couldn’t hold it any longer and that’s why she got in touch with the judiciary to legally report him,” said Fioribello in an interview with the LN+ television channel.

Fernández denied the accusations, first to La Nación and later via a short communiqué published on X on Tuesday evening. 

“I want to express that the truth of the matter is different. All I will say is that what I am being accused of is false and never happened,” he said. “I will not give media statements but provide evidence and testimonies to the judiciary that will prove what really happened.”

According to Fioribello, the former president called him on Tuesday morning claiming that he could prove it was all “100% false.” 

In a ruling signed on Tuesday afternoon, which the Herald has seen, Federal Judge Julián Ercolini placed a restraining order on Fernández, banning him from leaving Argentina and from getting within 500 meters of Yañez and her home in Madrid. Ercolini also ordered the former president to “cease acts of disruption or intimidation, directly or indirectly, against [Yañez] both in person and online.”

Fioribello explained that he knew both parties, having worked for their family during Fernández’s presidency, but that Yañez had decided to come forward independently. He told LN+ he had been surprised by Fabiola’s report, although he had witnessed friction between the two.

“She had never told me that he hit her, until now,” he said.

The couple are reportedly separated, although Fioribello did not confirm when this happened. 

According to Judge Ercolini’s six-page ruling, this case began when WhatsApp conversations between Yañez and Fernández’s former secretary surfaced in mid-June in the federal investigation into accusations Fernández improperly handled state insurance contacts during his presidency. 

The chats, previously leaked to journalists, allegedly contain photos and videos sent by Yañez with evidence of physical assault while the couple lived in the Quinta de Olivos presidential residence. A full transcript of the chats themselves has not been made public, but their alleged contents were reported by Clarin newspaper over the weekend.

Local media reported that Ercolini sent the case to the Supreme Courts Gender Based Violence Office but it was returned to his docket in late June. He offered to take Yañez’s statement at the time, which she turned down. 

“It should be noted that this case was archived on July 1, 2024 because it could not proceed, since the alleged victim stated that she did not wish to file a criminal action at that time. That said, on August 6 [Yañez] said that in her previous hearing she had been asked not to take legal action against her alleged aggressor,” wrote Ercolini. “She expressed that she was suffering what she defined as ‘psychological terrorism’ by the accused as well as daily telephone harassment.”

According to Ercolini, Yañez opted to take legal action due to “phone messages psychologically intimidating her” and the case, originally categorized as “minor injuries in the context of gender-based violence,” was reopened as a result.

“Victims of gender-based violence speak when they can, not when they want to,” said Fioribello. “Maybe at one moment they say ‘No, that’s not how it went’ and then one day they explode […] And I think that was today.”