The prosecutor has ratified this Tuesday in requesting sentences of 7.5 years in prison for each of the three accused for alleged crimes of bribery, fraud and prevarication, the former councilor of Arico Álvaro Arbelo and two businessmen, during the last day of celebration of the corresponding trial.
The former councilor of Works of Arico Álvaro Arbelo, on trial for bribery and contracting fraud
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It also demands that during the execution of the sentence the money allegedly defrauded is set, which the Civil Guard estimates at 40,000 euros, and that it be returned to the City Council.
The events date back to 2010 and 2011 when, according to the Public Ministry, the businessmen and the councilor would have agreed to award works “by finger” and then keep part of the amounts paid.
The alleged crime of fraud would be based on the fact that the budgets of the works were extended to the maximum possible permitted by law.
The prevarication would only affect the councilman and would be justified in that he was not qualified to carry out adjudications.
At this time there are at least two people related to this case whose whereabouts are unknown, a woman who controlled one of the companies of a defendant who has been missing for ten years and the same would happen with the worker of a consultancy.
The son of another businessman who appeared as a proxy assured that he did not perform any work, which has led the prosecutor to conclude that the two businessmen were the ones who really controlled these five companies classified as fictitious.
And this is so given that they lacked personnel and material means, so they had to constantly resort to subcontracting and carry out the works with self-employed workers.
On one occasion the headquarters of a company was the private house and also the companies did not comply with their tax and accounting obligations and lacked inventory.
The truth is that in those years it was forbidden to subcontract the works and it was only allowed to do so in a certain percentage.
The “coincidence” occurs that when a contest was opened, all the companies under suspicion presented their proposals on the same day.
The three lawyers for the defendants agreed to request free acquittal insofar as all the contracts were legal as they were endorsed by City Hall officials and had the mandatory reports.
The former councilman’s lawyer said that none of the evidence presented by the Prosecutor’s Office was strong and there are errors in the amounts allegedly defrauded.
“Here there has been no black hand but what there are are manipulated documents that appear after the instruction,” he said.
