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Cuando la víctima se volteó, le guiñé el ojo a mi cómplice.

Cuando la víctima se volteó, le guiñé el ojo a mi cómplice.
When the victim turned around, I winked at my accomplice.
From Lesson 371:Negative conditions (sin que)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Cuando la víctima se volteó, le guiñé el ojo a mi cómplice.

Why do we use el ojo instead of mi ojo?
In Spanish, when talking about body parts, you almost always use the definite article (el, la, los, las) instead of possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su). Since you are the one doing the winking, it is naturally understood that it is your own eye.
Why is the pronoun le used here if the sentence already says a mi cómplice?
This is a classic example of a redundant indirect object pronoun. In Spanish, when the indirect object (the person receiving the action) is explicitly named using a + [person/thing], the corresponding indirect object pronoun (le in this case) is practically always still required in the sentence.
Why is se volteó in the indicative and not the subjunctive after Cuando?
The conjunction cuando only triggers the subjunctive when it refers to a future, uncompleted, or anticipated event. Because this sentence is reporting a completed, factual action that already happened in the past, it simply uses the preterite indicative.
How would I change this sentence to say "I winked at my accomplice without the victim turning around" using this lesson's grammar?
You would use sin que (without) followed by the past subjunctive: Le guiñé el ojo a mi cómplice sin que la víctima se volteara. The phrase sin que introduces a negative condition and always triggers the subjunctive, and we use the past subjunctive because the main verb (guiñé) is in the past.
What is the difference between voltear and voltearse?
The verb voltear on its own means to turn or flip something else over (like a page or a pancake). To say a person physically turned themselves around to look back or face another direction, you must use the reflexive form voltearse.

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