The Deceptive Claims of a Former Regional Presidential Delegate that Led to a Search and Charges Against a Public Official: Who Will Correct the Injustice?

I. The Search

It was noon on March 17, 2026, when officials from the Chilean Police of Investigations stormed the home of Fernanda Romero C, an official at the Regional Presidential Delegation of O’Higgins. They executed their operation with the force typical of a crackdown on organized crime: they forced open the gate of her condominium, alarming the neighbors and leaving Fernanda in a state of confusion and distress that would take her months to recover from.

The PDI was acting under legal authority: a warrant from the Rancagua Guarantee Court, issued by the High Complexity Prosecutor’s Office of O’Higgins. During the search, they seized phones and a laptop. But the episode did not end there.

That same afternoon, at 6:00 PM, investigators arrived at the offices of the Presidential Delegation to also seize the desktop computer that Fernanda used for work. This time, the humiliation was in front of her colleagues.

In the days that followed, she learned the reason: she was accused of the crime of forgery or malicious use of a public instrument. The allegation was serious: she supposedly forged the signature of the then Regional Presidential Delegate, Fabio López Aguilera, on a resolution that terminated a rental contract for government housing benefiting her and her children.

II. The Document No One Wanted to Sign

To understand how it reached this point, we must go back to February 24, 2026, just days before the change in government. It was then that Delegate López, through an exemped resolution and without much justification, ordered the restitution of the government housing that Fernanda lived in with her children.

This was not an arbitrary benefit. Fernanda had substantiated, with certificates from COMPIN and the National Disability Registry, that two of her children had disabilities exceeding 70%, with full needs for educational and medical support. She was a head of household. The state housing rental, obtained after extensive efforts, was her safety net.

The termination of the contract effectively left her homeless.

With support from her union, Fernanda urgently petitioned the Ministry of the Interior. After numerous follow-ups, the ministry intervened: it was communicated that the issue would be resolved with a new resolution nullifying the previous one, to be submitted on March 11, the first day of the new government.

On March 10, López had a WhatsApp conversation with an advisor to the former head of the Interior Government Division, Andrés Santander. According to records, the ex-delegate indicated that the signature of the document was already «in process» and that, although he did not have an office for incoming documents at that hour, it would be assigned a number and formalized the next day.

March 11 arrived. And the document did not appear.

III. Denial and Its Consequences

Fernanda directly consulted the legal advisor of the Delegation, Cristián Sobarzo, if the resolution had been assigned a number. The response was bewildering.

«I was not aware that ex-Delegate López had signed the document,» Sobarzo replied. Then, in a second email, he was more explicit: «I reiterate what he indicated to me: that he would not sign it, and he reiterated that yesterday; so I don’t know how it got signed».

It was then that Sobarzo informed the new Regional Presidential Delegate, Susana Pinto González—who had assumed office on March 11—that there was a resolution supposedly signed by López that he denied as his own. He warned that there could be administrative and criminal responsibilities.

Delegate Pinto referred the matter to the regional prosecutor’s office. The judicial mechanism was set in motion immediately. And the main suspect, having the most evident motive, was Fernanda.

IV. The Belated Confession

On March 18, Fabio López testified before the regional prosecutor’s office. His statements, according to available records, were fundamental—and revealing.

He acknowledged that since March 5, the advisor Sobarzo had conveyed the dissatisfaction from the central level of the Ministry of the Interior regarding the resolution terminating Fernanda’s rental. That on March 9, in conjunction with Sobarzo, they reviewed an official document from the former head of the Interior Government Division urging the cancellation of that resolution. That on March 10 afternoon, from the central level, he was once again pressed.

And then he admitted something that completely alters the narrative: he finally agreed to sign and stamp the new resolution. Yet—he claimed—he understood that, since he did not have access to the document submission system, the act would lack formal validity.

What he failed to coherently explain was why, having signed the document with the official stamp of the Presidential Delegation, he told his legal advisor he had not signed it.

According to records, López admitted to lying to Sobarzo and acknowledged that «he has no rational explanation for his actions.» He stated he only «thought quickly and poorly».

That lie, uttered in seconds, triggered months of distress for Fernanda Romero.

V. A Longer Story

The episode did not arise in a vacuum. The conflict between Fernanda and Delegate López’s environment dates back to March 2022 when she first requested access to government housing to improve the living conditions for her disabled children.

In the subsequent years, every legitimate effort Fernanda made—such as obtaining telework permission, authorization to take her son to the Teletón and the Neurosurgery Institute, and access to the government housing—were met with obstacles, delays, or unreasonable demands. On one occasion, the delegate’s lawyer required a notarized statement with two witnesses to prove that she was the mother of her own children.

The union efforts seeking rational solutions at the ministry’s central level generated a negative perception of Fernanda and her organization among the delegate’s team. The situation led to a prolonged depression, recognized as a work-related illness by the Safety Mutual.

Fernanda was not alone. At least three other female staff members of the Delegation—Milena Acevedo, Mabel Chacón, and Ingrid Cancino—suffered similar situations during López’s tenure. In all these cases, the Safety Mutual classified the origin of the illnesses as occupational, repeatedly using the term «dysfunctional leadership» in reports.

It is striking that so many similar cases, with such categorical resolutions, concentrated in a single unit of the Interior Government—small institutions by definition—without resulting in consistent management measures.

VI. Conclusion and Open Questions

On May 5, 2026, two months after the search, the prosecution closed the case against Fernanda Romero under the legal concept of «non-existence of the crime». She was freed from all charges.

However, the case leaves unanswered questions. Did legal advisor Sobarzo communicate to Delegate Pinto the full context surrounding the drafting of the contested document? The emails exchanged with Fernanda suggest he was aware of the exchanges between López and the ministry’s central level, information that was not included in the referral to the prosecutor’s office.

It is worth questioning whether the prosecution would have opted for such intrusive and immediate actions had they possessed the complete context from the start.

And above all, the most disturbing question remains: why did a senior state official lie about his own signature, knowing that this lie would fall on an ordinary public servant merely trying to protect her children?

Today, Fernanda and the other officials are in the process of recovery. They understand that this journey takes time and requires care and support. There is no desire for revenge, only for justice. To learn more about the events described in this article and what happens next, we interviewed the President of Fenaminsa (National Federation of Associations of Officials of the Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Public Security, and Related Services) Esteban Tumba Martínez.

Regarding the specific actions taken or to be taken by the FENAMINSA to demand administrative and/or criminal accountability from López Aguilera for admitting to the prosecution that he lied about his own signature, Tumba stated that the federation’s legal team is evaluating various actions.

«For now, Fernanda has already filed an internal administrative complaint within the Service. We do not know if the disciplinary procedure has begun since it is an internal investigation. Currently, we know that Fernanda has not been questioned,» he stated.

When asked why legal advisor Cristián Sobarzo referred the case to the prosecution without informing the complete context surrounding the drafting of the document, including conversations between the then-delegate Fabio López and the central ministry level, the president of FENAMINSA acknowledged that this question is evident upon analyzing the case. He pointed out that Sobarzo was aware of the background surrounding the situation, and from a professional perspective, his actions would be «inexplicable.»

«I emphasize that this is a professional matter, as Sobarzo presides over another officials’ association in the Presidential Delegation of O’Higgins that consistently disqualified the claims of affected officials, thereby protecting López’s management, to the point of publicly defending the former authority with banners. All this should be clarified in the administrative process,» he added.

On the other hand, Tumba mentioned that the federation is not aware of Delegate Pinto having verified the background before referring to the prosecutor’s office. However, he stated that «given that the presentation of the background was so specific, combined with the fact that the Administrative Statute contains employee obligations regarding these matters, it is very likely that the new authority did not consider other possibilities.»

Regarding the lack of timely management measures, considering that at least four officials—Fernanda Romero, Milena Acevedo, Mabel Chacón, and Ingrid Cancino—experienced similar situations under López’s administration, with Safety Mutual diagnoses coinciding in stating «dysfunctional leadership,» the federation president questioned the inaction of authorities.

Tumba argued that, in light of the complaints made by the workers and the reports issued by the Safety Mutual, it is inexplicable that no more effective measures were taken beyond the formal fulfillment of corrective actions that he deemed useless or the execution of disciplinary procedures that ultimately yielded no concrete results

«Both Fernanda and Fenaminsa have made multiple efforts before the Ministry of the Interior, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, Courts, the Ministry of Women, and local lawmakers, without making progress. What is clear in this sense is that the authorities lacked the organizational and political will to decisively intervene or remove an authority that represented the President of the Republic in this case, to whom we also wrote to disclose the situation, without receiving a satisfactory response,» he concluded.

For Tumba, the lack of effective responses despite the accumulation of complaints and evidence raises a fundamental question: what was more important than the health and integrity of the affected officials? In his view, the magnitude of the efforts made, which included complaints to public organisms, protests, and media exposure of the cases, leads to the conclusion that the absence of decisive measures was due to political considerations rather than a lack of information about what was occurring.

Finally, the president of FENAMINSA stated that the federation has established protocols for situations of labor or administrative origin affecting officials:

«This is through a contract that we signed eight years ago with the Popular Defense of Workers, which provides free legal defense for members, and has developed very successfully. Regarding criminal matters, and given that these situations are quite exceptional, the decision to intervene is made through the debate occurring in the Executive Board of FENAMINSA,» he concluded.

El Ciudadano

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