Peace Prize winner accused of sex assault
Former Costa Rica president denies 2014 accusation
SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — A psychiatrist and anti-nuclear activist has accused Óscar Arias Sánchez, the Nobel laureate and former Costa Rica president, of sexually assaulting her four years ago, bringing the #MeToo movement to one of Latin America’s most revered statesmen.
Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for having brokered a plan to end civil wars in Central America. He remains the most powerful figure in Costa Rica, which he led twice and where he continues to run a foundation that promotes peace and democracy.
The sexual assault allegation could deliver a serious blow to his legacy.
The accuser, Alexandra Arce von Herold, filed a criminal complaint with federal prosecutors Monday and gave a statement under penalty of perjury asking them to charge Arias with sexual assault. She provided a copy of the 10-page complaint to the New York Times, which shows she had met with prosecutors for nearly three hours. Arce did not seek civil damages.
A nuclear disarmament activist, Arce often met with the former president, who was an important supporter of the cause. She said she was at Arias’ home in late 2014 to discuss an upcoming event in Vienna when he came up behind her, touched her breasts and shoved his hands up her skirt, penetrating her with his fingers.
She left, distraught, and told a number of people what had happened, at times in tears. Among them were colleagues and her brother, who said that for weeks afterward, “it was like she had PTSD. She didn’t feel safe.”
In a statement emailed by his lawyer, Rodolfo Brenes, Arias said he was innocent and would defend himself in court.
“I deny categorically the accusations made against me,” he said. “I have never acted in a way that disrespected the will of any woman.”
Arias is also facing unrelated accusations of criminal malfeasance in connection with his 2008 decision to approve a Canadian company’s gold mining project in an ecological corridor before environmental studies had been completed. The case has been through a preliminary hearing, and Arias is waiting for the court to determine whether he will stand trial.
“Politics today is a conspiracy of insinuations,” Arias wrote in an op-ed column last month in response to the malfeasance charge.
Thinking back to the afternoon when she said Arias had grabbed her, Arce said she regretted not having fought back. She was in shock, she said. She had first met Arias through her mother, a former legislator in his party, and had visited his house with her mother in the past.
“I just froze, and I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I was so much in shock. That had never happened to me before.”
Arce said the only thing that occurred to her at the time was to cry out: “You’re married!”
She said she made up an excuse about having an appointment at the National Assembly and hurried out. She was in such a panic, she said, that she actually went to the National Assembly, even though she had no meeting scheduled.
There, Arce met a member of Congress she knew and told her what had just happened, she said.
That legislator’s aide, who did not want his name published because he did not wish to get entangled in a scandal involving such an influential person, confirmed the account to The Times. The aide said Arce had been teary-eyed and nervous.
That same day, Arce also called her boyfriend, who lives in France, and told him.
“I immediately trusted Alex,” the boyfriend, Jean Marie Collin, said. “I never had a doubt about what she told me.”
Arce also said she told her brother, her father and several other people in the nuclear disarmament movement. Her complaint says she spoke to 15 people.
Arce said she did not go public earlier because, before the #MeToo movement led to a period of reckoning in the United States, the notion of making such a serious allegation against someone so powerful seemed unimaginable.
She said that seeing women accuse powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby of sexual harassment and sexual assault was inspiring. But it was watching the young gymnasts testify one after the other about sexual assault by a U.S. Olympic team doctor, Larry Nassar, that clinched her decision to come forward, she said.
“All the other women, that did, that helped me,” said Arce, who works at a state hospital in San José, Costa Rica’s capital. “So I thought maybe, maybe, I can help other people, too.”