The mayor of Estepona avoids responding to the judge for the case of alleged embezzlement: “It has no basis”

The mayor of Estepona, José María García Urbano (PP), went to the Estepona courts this morning to declare that he was being investigated for an alleged embezzlement committed by hiring as a position of trust for a month and a half a woman who was, according to the statement of her, a victim of alleged sexual harassment. The councilor, who claims to be the victim of a “baseless” complaint, has refused to answer questions from the judge, the Prosecutor’s Office or the popular accusations (PSOE and Vox). He has made a plea defending his innocence and has answered a single question from his lawyer. Upon leaving, he also avoided responding to journalists by mechanically repeating eight words: “It is a complaint that has no basis.”

It is the strategy that the councilor has followed since this case broke out: denying that there is a case. First, he tried to prevent it from spreading. Later, when the judge admitted the complaint in which a local police officer recounted sexual encounters between the mayor, himself and his then partner (CPB) forced by García Urbano, he assured that everything was due to a plot for “spurious reasons.” And now that the judge has split off another case of an economic nature (to investigate whether there was embezzlement in the eventual contracting of CPB) he has repeated the same thing, at least to the journalists, who have asked him five specific questions without obtaining an answer: Why Was she hired? How did you know her? Why did you stop it? Are you going to request the file? What functions did you perform as a position of trust? He has responded the same to everything: “It is a complaint that has no basis.” “But why was she hired?” “I have already answered you.”

In court, before the judge, the prosecutor, the accusations and his own lawyer, he answered two questions from his own lawyer, after an exculpatory statement, in which he assured that he hired the woman after meeting her on the Internet and shortly before of the elections before the “mantra” that the town had cleanliness problems, and that she should send reports directly to him, not to the councilor of the area to which she was assigned. Although the council has already provided documentation to the court, it has not delivered any report signed by her, which today confirmed that she did not set foot in the town hall except on the day she signed her contract.

For the rest of those present (judge, prosecutor and popular accusations) they have taken advantage of their right not to testify.

A report from the councilor explaining his supposed tasks

García Urbano’s statement should shed light on the reason for the hiring and the functions performed by CPB in the Estepona city council from February 13, 2023 to March 31 of the same year, in which he received just over 5,200 euros as position of trust for advisory work in the External Control area. This area monitors compliance with outsourced contracts, which in Estepona amount to just over 44 million euros. CPB is a nursing assistant, and she herself has stated that she never really played any role in the consistory.

The proceedings already include some documents provided by the city council, which admits that there is no file or time record in which their work is recorded. The council has also provided the court with a report from the councilor of the area, Blas Ruzafa, in which he assures that, although it was a position of trust (and therefore, a discretionary appointment by the mayor), his functions did not require any training or experience. since they were “tasks that can be seen with the naked eye.” The Public Employee Statute provides that trusted personnel “only perform functions expressly classified as trust or special advice.”

Among the documentation that the city council sent to the court is not, however, the supposed report from the human resources area prior to the appointment of the woman as a position of trust. And this, despite the fact that the judge required his entire hiring file.

CPB statement

Before García Urbano, the CPB itself testified, in this case as a witness. Sources close to the case explain that what she already told the same judge in the case of alleged sexual harassment has been ratified: that, although she was appointed to a position of trust, she never actually went to work in Estepona. That statement was what motivated the judge to open a separate case to investigate the embezzlement.

She lived in Córdoba, and in the sexual harassment complaint with which this whole mess began, made by a local Córdoba police officer stationed on the Costa del Sol, it was reported that the mayor paid them 2,000 euros a month and an apartment to have them in Estepona.

According to sources close to the case, today the woman explained to the judge that she had a relationship with the councilor and that she was then hired by the city council, where she only went to sign the contract document. However, he would have found out about the dismissal a month and a half after the appointment because he stopped receiving pay.

He has also confirmed that he had no knowledge of cleaning, gardens or maintenance contracts.

Plenary session on Thursday

The two criminal investigations opened against the mayor of Estepona have caused a political earthquake in the town. Both PSOE and Vox have appeared as popular accusations in the case of alleged embezzlement, but not in the case of sexual harassment, which the judge keeps restricted given that supposedly explicit evidence has been provided.

The PSOE has asked the PP to remove García Urbano from the mayor’s office while the investigations are carried out, which now depend on the fate that the judge wants to give them: archive both, continue one and not the other, or move forward with both agreeing further. proceedings or moving them to the next procedural phase.

Manuel Aguilar, spokesperson for Vox, has justified the recent appearance in this case. “We understand that it could be detrimental to municipal coffers. “We are talking about public money.”