Maradona’s lawyer and two of his sisters to stand trial over ‘undue profit’ from his trademarks

An Argentine court on Tuesday ordered the case to proceed to trial against Diego Armando Maradona’s last lawyer and legal representative, Matías Morla, as well as his sisters Rita Mabel and Claudia Norma Maradona, who are accused of defrauding the sports icon’s legitimate heirs in the exploitation of his commercial trademarks. More than five years after the star’s death, the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 43 rejected a request to dismiss the charges and declared the investigative phase closed.

In addition to Morla and the Maradona sisters, two of the former footballer’s assistants — Maximiliano Pomargo and Sergio Garmendia — along with notary Sandra Iampolsky, will also stand trial. Prosecutors accuse all of them of “defrauding the interests of the legitimate heirs of Diego Armando Maradona” through a company that managed 246 trademarks linked to Maradona, who died on November 25, 2020.

The ruling explains that although the company — called Sattvica SA — was nominally owned by Morla and Pomargo, its commercial operations were carried out under Maradona’s directives. After his death, as part of the probate process, the owners of Sattvica were ordered to immediately transfer all trademarks to Maradona’s legitimate heirs — his children Dalma, Gianinna, Jana, Diego Fernando, and Diego Junior Maradona — a requirement Morla refused to comply with. Later, according to the accusation, all of Sattvica’s shares were transferred to Rita Mabel and Claudia Nora, although Morla continued to play a central role in the company’s decisions.

“With this conduct, they sought to obtain an undue profit, violating the duties and obligations entrusted to them and thereby harming the interests placed in their care,” the ruling stated, noting the damage to the heirs. In late 2025, Argentine courts upheld the indictment of Rita Mabel and Claudia Nora as accomplices in the crime of fraud through fraudulent administration, and this past February also confirmed the ban on using the Maradona trademarks.

Tuesday’s court decision became public as, in parallel, the fifth hearing of the new trial over Maradona’s death was underway, in which seven healthcare workers are charged with simple homicide with eventual intent. At the hearing, Rita Mabel Maradona testified and, as in the first trial — annulled in May 2025 after it emerged that a judge had been filming it for a documentary in which she appeared — she pointed to the late footballer’s daughters and stressed that they “said they were going to take responsibility for their father.”

Maradona died at age 60 while receiving home care in a residence on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Before being moved there, the soccer icon had been hospitalized in a clinic, where he underwent surgery. At that facility, a meeting was held between doctors, lawyers, and family members in which it was decided to continue his care under a home‑care arrangement — a decision that, according to several witnesses, proved decisive in his death.

For that reason, in this second trial to determine responsibility for the Argentine star’s death, those being prosecuted are his neurosurgeon and primary doctor, Leopoldo Luque; psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov; psychologist Carlos Díaz; Swiss Medical doctor and coordinator Nancy Forlini; physician Pedro Di Spagna; nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni; and nurse Ricardo Almirón.

Also testifying on Tuesday was Verónica Ojeda, who was in a relationship with Diego Armando Maradona and is the mother of his youngest son. She submitted the full recording of a meeting in which the treatment plan for the footballer was decided. It is considered a key piece of evidence in a trial that will continue over the coming months.

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