María Teresa MJ, widow of the prestigious Valencian lawyer Luis GJ, stamped her fingerprint on a will on August 24, 2012, while he was resting in a private hospital room in Alzira. More than half of his assets, valued at a total of 12.1 million euros, went directly to a Catholic foundation chaired by a retired general of the Spanish Army and whose board also includes a priest. The woman, 80 years old and originally from Gandia, had suffered two strokes a month before signing the will that caused serious multifactorial alterations. “She had no responsiveness at all, she did not speak, she did not respond to stimuli, the state was catatonic,” said Manuel MP, a fifth-grade relative who grew up with the woman practically as if they were cousins. The elderly woman suffered from a “very serious cognitive impairment” and did not have “the capacity to make a will” or to solve very simple mathematical problems that a six-year-old child would solve,” according to Pedro DSJ, then clinical director of the Hospital’s brain injury service. from Aigües Vives de Alzira (València), a well-known center specialized in this type of patient. María José FV, the notary who went to the hospital to attest, stated that the signing of the will had taken place in her professional office. The document also indicated: “In my opinion, he has the necessary legal capacity to execute his will (…).” Faced with the “bustle” of people circulating through the hospital, the clinical director of the center brought the facts to the attention of the Prosecutor’s Office on the recommendation of a judge friend. The woman’s distant cousin later reported the will.
“It is the only time that has happened to me in my life, in 30 years of work,” said the former clinical director of the Aigües Vives brain injury service during the session dedicated to the statements of witnesses in the oral trial for these events, held this Thursday before the second section of the Provincial Court of Valencia. “I thought, my God, how is a lady like that, without any capacity, going to sign at the notary office,” exclaimed the neuropsychologist.
The Prosecutor’s Office requests a sentence of five years in prison for the notary for an alleged continued crime of falsifying a public document as the author, in addition to special disqualification from the exercise of her profession as a notary for five years. The beneficiaries of the will appear as lucrative participants and the Prosecutor’s Office asks that they restore the “hereditary estate” jointly and severally.
The Public Ministry also requests that the nullity of the public deed be declared. Thus, since the deceased had no descendants, her millionaire assets would pass into the hands of the Generalitat Valenciana (the Legal Profession appears in person). The public prosecution considers an insurance company with which the notary had taken out a policy for the exercise of her professional activity directly liable in civil liability.
The distribution of the will
The will granted 6.8 million euros to the Gozalbo Marqués Foundation, a social assistance entity founded in Madrid by the deceased a few months before she suffered her first stroke, in March 2012. On the other hand, it also granted 650,000 euros to head to several employers: the nephews of her late husband Luis FG and José Luis GA. In addition, María Dolores FG and Joaquín FG were awarded the same amount. He gave General José Luis MC (president of the foundation) and priest Javier RM the same figure.
The will also reserved 650,000 euros per person for Rosario BL and Yolanda PR (head of administration and tax advisor, respectively, of the deceased) and Manuel MA, all of them trustees of the foundation. On the other hand, he left two minors at the time of the events 3,000 euros each. And, finally, 6,000 euros to the couple’s godchildren. To her late husband’s only sister, the will returned five paintings, a religious carving and panel, and a reliquary from a family inheritance.
The document of provisional conclusions of the Prosecutor’s Office, to which elDiario.es has had access, maintains that the notary made it appear that the documents had been drawn up at the request of the elderly woman when in reality it had been requested by Joaquín FP, nephew of her late husband.
The woman was, according to the public accusation, in a “state of minimal consciousness” (anarthria, in clinical terms), without the ability to establish any type of communication, “so it was not possible that she had given the precise orders for writing the will, nor the granting of power, nor that he present his consent with the content” of the notarial documents.
Neither the notary nor the witnesses who intervened in the Aigües Vives hospital room at the signing of the will consulted with the director of the center or with any medical professional, “despite being aware of the successive cardiovascular accidents suffered on previous dates and of the evident state of minimal consciousness in which he found himself,” concludes the prosecutor.
Rosa SF, a former employee of the elderly woman, appeared as a witness at the oral hearing, at the request of the defense, and assured that after the first stroke, the woman “had her left side affected but could speak.” On a second visit, the widow “could no longer speak, even though she tried.” He also recalled that the old woman “had spoken with a notary” regarding powers of attorney.
However, the rest of the witnesses agreed that the woman’s abilities were greatly impaired. Pedro DSJ, clinical director of the brain injury service at the Aigües Vivas hospital, described the elderly woman’s cognitive abilities as “perfectly null,” with “minimal responses” and no option to make a will. The patient, with a “minimal response,” continued to perform “automatic functions” (heartbeat and breathing) and little else.
People “swarming” in the hospital
The neuropsychologist was alerted by the people “swarming” in the old woman’s room. There was, as he said, a “travel of people.” The professionals at the center were upset by the situation. “A man who introduced himself as the patient’s lawyer appeared without prior notice and began to tell me technical things that I did not understand at all,” said Daniel GC, a doctor in the Brain Injury Unit of the hospital.
Given the “uncertainty” of who was the woman’s legal guardian, “it was decided to inform the Prosecutor’s Office so that we would have an interlocutor to be able to make decisions,” declared the doctor.
The social worker in charge of preparing a report on the elderly woman, at the request of the Alzira Prosecutor’s Office, explained at the trial that her only sources were the landlords of a property owned by the woman. The “lady’s landlords” assured her that the deceased husband’s nephews were the closest relatives.
Manuel MP, the elderly woman’s distant cousin, also alluded to an alleged “express order” from the deceased husband’s nephew not to give him information. “They gave me a lot of trouble and didn’t want to give me information,” he said. After insisting on the center and claiming that he was also a relative of the woman, he was able to access it along with his brother and his cousins Amparín, Pilar and Paquita on daily visits to his loved one. “We thought that by telling him things from his childhood we could get him to react, we would give him caresses and kisses,” said the witness.
Even though their distant cousin “was terrible” and didn’t even recognize them, they found out that a will had been made: “They came in and covered her fingers with ink.” The man suspected that they intended to “dispossess her of her assets.”
Francisco Javier CG, psychologist of the multidisciplinary team that treated the patient at the Aigües Vives hospital, agreed that the woman had a “very limited capacity for understanding” or “none.” “In the end we are talking about a great dependent,” said the witness, for whom the woman was in a kind of “wakeful state.”
When asked by the defense, the elderly woman’s distant cousin declared that when he reported the facts to the Prosecutor’s Office, he was unaware that the regulations provide for a reward for anyone who informs the Administration of the possibility of intestate inheritance (the legal term that refers to the intestate procedure). adjudication of assets in the event of a void will). “Now yes, but at the time the events began I not only did not know that but I did not know what a legacy in an inheritance was, I myself had not made an inheritance,” said Manuel MP.
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