Gema contacted Bernarda, a childhood friend, in 2013 through social networks. She was unaware at the time that her former schoolmate had been convicted nine times of fraud. Years later, she told her friend that she was going to divorce her, and she assured her that she was a lawyer and could handle the procedure.
She was not, and the Third Section of the Provincial Court of Valencia has sentenced her to four years in prison for a continuous crime of fraud, aggravated by the abuse of personal relationships and appreciating the aggravating circumstance of recidivism.
The sentence, the result of an agreement between the parties and which has been declared final, also imposes one year in prison for a continued crime of fraud against another accused, who acted as an assistant to the false lawyer.
Both must jointly compensate the victim with 56,723 euros, 16,723 in concept of defrauded amounts that they appropriated and the other 40,000 for the moral damages caused as a result of the scam.
The events occurred starting in 2020, when the victim asked the main convict for advice about her divorce process. Since they had resumed the relationship they had in childhood in 2013, their friendship became one of great intimacy and confidence, according to the sentence.
The false lawyer told her victim that she would be in charge of the entire divorce process and gave her an address of a supposed office in Valencia, although she warned her that, due to the pandemic, she would manage everything electronically. The injured party trusted the convicted woman because of her apparent professional solvency and because of the personal relationship they had.
Thus, between the years 2020 and 2021, he asked for up to 16,700 euros to pay fees, bonds or other expenses that, as stated in the judicial resolution, the convicted person, who was never registered in any bar association nor practiced as a lawyer, , it was invented.
A second defendant also participated in the supposed legal procedures for the divorce, who presented herself as an assistant, helper or assistant to the false lawyer and who was in charge of the procedures that she could not undertake.
Due to the non-existent management in the judicial process, the victim had serious problems and was accused and convicted of a crime of child abduction, after following the advice of the main accused not to hand over the children to her ex-husband.
