MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Punta Tombo Massacre perpetrator found guilty

La Regina was always “aware of the damage he was causing” and for that, he will spend between four and 12 years in jail

A Chubut provincial criminal court in the city of Rawson in Argentine Patagonia Thursday found agribusinessman Ricardo La Regina guilty of aggravated damage and animal cruelty in the so-called Punta Tombo Penguin Massacre. Sentencing is scheduled for Monday.

In 2021, he bulldozed a colony of 105 penguins and 175 nests in the reserve in the Punta Clara area. The prosecution recalled wire fencing was found in the possession of the defendant, whose lawyer Federico Ruffa had tried to strike a plea bargain agreement through the donation of 500 hectares of land to the State, which was not accepted.

Justices Carlos Richieri, Eve Ponce, and Laura Martini found the businessman guilty of crimes entailing penalties between 4 and 12 years of incarceration, which means that La Regina will have to serve some actual prison time. In Argentina, only sentences below 3 years are eligible for immediate parole.

The court declared La Regina “criminally responsible for the crimes of aggravated damage, a fact in the form of a continuous crime” for the events “that occurred between August 10 and 14, September 10 and 14, and November 26 and December 4, 2021” in the estancia La Perla, located in the Florentino Ameghino department of the Province of Chubut. He was also found guilty of the “crime of animal cruelty” for the events that took place between November 26 and December 4, 2021.

Nevertheless, he was acquitted of the charges for the events that took place between September 10 and 14 that year, when he again drove the backhoe over the same path that he had opened exactly one month before.

Between August and December 2021 he opened a road with a backhoe, between his ranch in Punta Clara bordering the protected Punta Tombo penguin colony and the ocean, in addition to dismantling autochthonous flora to set up an electrified wire.

In the process, penguin nests, hatchlings, and eggs were crushed. According to expert testimony, between 200 and 300 Magellanic penguins were killed. La Regina's attorney contended that it could not be proven that the work had actually caused the death of any penguin.

La Regina also pled in his defense that the penguins were affecting his livelihood - he grew cattle in the area that needed feeding. “The State was absent for more than 10 years and Justice did not act at that time either,” he complained. Charges against La Regina were filed by his uncle Alberto La Regina, one of the first fauna rangers in the area. His father, Luis, donated the land to create the penguin colony, which for decades was the largest Magellanic penguin reserve in the world.

The case gained worldwide notoriety due to the environmental damage, with many private plaintiffs joining the efforts of Prosecutor Florencia Gómez, who underlined that La Regina disregarded biodiversity in his quest for profit. She also explained that La Regina's action resulted in the clearing of 2,049 square meters of flora and fauna, severely affecting penguin nests, eggs, and chicks, and insisted that the defendant had always been “aware of the damage he was causing.”

(See also: Punta Tombo penguin massacre trial begins)