Juana Carolina Vera González, the sister-in-law of San Pedro Governor Freddy D'Ecclesiis, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for drug trafficking, served the majority of her sentence under house arrest. She turned herself in to serve the sentence last Sunday, following an arrest warrant issued on July 6.
The case against Vera began in 2018, during Operation Austral, an anti-drug operation that resulted in the seizure of 448 kilograms of cocaine at a ranch in Itapúa. Suspicious aircraft, including one allegedly used to unload the drugs, were found in a hangar owned by Vera, leading to her prosecution along with 11 other people.
Initially, Vera's pre-trial detention was ordered in November 2018 and upheld by successive judicial instances. However, in June 2021, a change in the composition of the Court of Appeals resulted in her being granted house arrest. The then-appeals court judge Emiliano Rolón Fernández, now the Attorney General, formed a majority with Judge Cristóbal Sánchez, who changed his previous vote, allowing Vera to serve her sentence in her apartment at the Punta del Este Tower building in the Villa Aurelia neighborhood of Asunción.
The benefit was granted based on the argument that pre-trial detention should not exceed two years, according to the Criminal Procedure Code. The decision was contested at the time by anti-drug prosecutor Deny Pak, who filed an unconstitutionality appeal, without success. Pak highlighted Sánchez's change of position, who one month earlier had voted to maintain the detention of another individual who had already served more than three years in custody.
An official calculation by the sentence enforcement court determined that Vera has already served 7 years, 7 months, and 26 days of her sentence, making her eligible to request parole starting in February 2026. In practice, she spent only about two and a half years in prison, serving the remainder at her residence.