Businessman Eugenio María Sanabria Vierci was definitively dismissed by Paraguay's judiciary after approval of economic compensation agreements with relatives of victims from a traffic accident that resulted in four deaths in November 2024. Judge Augusto Acuña Rojas, of the Cordillera Judicial District, dismissed the criminal case based on reconciliation between the parties and full compensation for damages, as provided by Paraguay's Code of Criminal Procedure.
The accident occurred on the Ecovía highway, which connects Luque to San Bernardino, when the pickup truck driven by Sanabria Vierci crossed into the opposite lane and collided head-on with another vehicle. The fatal victims were the couple Osvaldo Jacquet Valdez and Kristin María Blumenröther, their daughter Philipe Jacquet Valdez, and Nancy Angeluz Chena Vallejos. A minor daughter of the couple survived the accident.
The judicial process proceeded with charges of aggravated negligent homicide due to drunk driving, as defined in Article 107 of the Penal Code. Sanabria Vierci's defense, led by attorney Ángel Dos Santos Melgarejo, presented two reconciliation agreements formalized through public deeds with relatives of Nancy Chena and with the legal guardian of the surviving minor, Jana Susanne Kotschenreuther. Both documents included full economic compensation and withdrawal of criminal actions.
During a preliminary hearing, the signing relatives confirmed they felt compensated by the agreement, and prosecutor Zulma Benítez did not oppose the dismissal of the criminal case. The judge reasoned that full compensation prioritizes rapid satisfaction of damages to victims, overriding traditional purposes of punishment. The decision also lifted the house arrest imposed on the businessman.
However, Nancy Jacquet, sister of one of the victims, publicly contested the dismissal. In an interview with Radio 1000, she stated that the Jacquet family never negotiated economic compensation and was excluded from the process for rejecting monetary agreements. Jacquet declared that the minor's legal guardian, who resides in Germany, signed the agreement without her consent, and criticized the driver's release: "Today he goes free after having killed four people."
The case exposes tensions in Paraguay's judicial system between reconciliation mechanisms and demands for criminal punishment, especially in negligent crimes with high social impact. The dismissal of the criminal case ends the judicial process, but the debate about justice and compensation remains open among the victims' relatives.
Update - Aug 13, 2026, 10:37 AM
Judge Augusto Acuña Rojas based the definitive dismissal on an analysis of "apparent conflict of laws." The judiciary considered that the conduct of driving under the influence of alcohol, provided for in Article 217 of the Penal Code as "exposure to danger," was absorbed by the aggravated figure of involuntary manslaughter, according to the legal modification that increases the penalty to a range of 3 to 8 years in prison. In this way, the court understood that an independent criminal prosecution was not appropriate to avoid a double trial for the same action.
In new statements, Nancy Jacquet, sister of one of the victims, deepened her criticisms, alleging that the Jacquet family was excluded from the process for rejecting any monetary agreement from the beginning. She told ABC Color that the legal guardian of the surviving minor, who resides in Germany, would have revealed that the German Embassy recommended signing the reparation agreement, an allegation that was not independently corroborated. According to her account, the guardian received advice from a German lawyer provided by the embassy, who would have said that "Paraguayan justice is not like German justice," in reference to the alleged slowness of processes. Jacquet lamented that the family only learned about the agreement through the press.
Given the closure of the case at the national level, the Jacquet family is considering appealing to international instances. Nancy Jacquet stated that local avenues are exhausted, after they presented an unconstitutionality appeal that was rejected, and that they are now analyzing, with their lawyers, the possibilities under international law. She also criticized the speed with which the judge approved the settlement to decree the dismissal, contrasting it with the extension of deadlines when requested by the victims' family.