The Prosecutor’s Office appeals the file of the accusation against the former mayor of Fortuna for the alleged purchase of votes

The Prosecutor’s Office has already appealed the decision of the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 2 of Cieza to shelve the proceedings against the former mayor of Fortuna, José Enrique Gil, and two other socialist mayors, Marisol Gracia and Tomás Bernal, for the alleged purchase of a vote from a neighbor.

These three colleagues from the corporation, defended by the criminal lawyer Raúl Pardo-Geijo Ruiz, had been under investigation since November 2020 as suspects of an electoral crime. It was investigated whether they offered a job to a neighbor, an employee of the municipal cleaning services, in exchange for her giving her vote to the PSOE in the municipal elections of May 2019.

The head of the court recently issued an order ordering the provisional dismissal of the case on the understanding that “the perpetration of the crime does not appear duly justified.” The Public Ministry, however, has appealed the order ensuring that the complainant’s statement “so far meets the requirements of plausibility, persistence and absence of subjective incredibility.” He emphasizes that the facts must be prosecuted by a Criminal Magistrate, who will decide if his version is credible.

bench penalty

The prosecutor, in his letter, explains that the complainant initially went to the Civil Guard to denounce alleged workplace harassment by the three councilors caused by reproaching them for buying a vote in a plenary session. In his opinion, this way of uncovering the alleged crime is “a plus of credibility.”

The representative of the Public Ministry also maintains that this neighbor retracted because, as she later explained, they told her that if she did not, she would have to pay 6,000 euros. At this point, the prosecutor emphasizes that she is “a person at risk of social exclusion with very little income.”

The Prosecutor’s Office also insists that the Civil Guard analyze the complainant’s mobile to investigate her audios and WhatsApp messages. He assures that he has already made this request but the investigators did not carry it out, alleging that the mobile was unloaded and the charging terminal was broken. The same reasons, he wields, for which it was decided to send them the phone.

The defense attorney has already submitted his pleadings against this appeal. This party does not consider “acceptable that, given the lack of success of the criminal action, it intends to subject three political citizens to the so-called ‘bench sentence’.” Pardo Geijo-Ruiz argues that the victim’s statement, without any diligence or data that can corroborate it, is not suitable to refute the presumption of innocence if, as is the case, he has had sufficient means at his disposal to prove the truth of the facts. what he claimed«.