The Provincial Court of Madrid has acquitted the former mayor of Santa Susanna (Barcelona) Josep Lluís Mulero (Ais-Junts) of an alleged sexual abuse of a young woman in 2018, by not considering it sufficiently proven that the sexual relationship he had with the woman was not consented.
In a sentence to which EFE has had access, Section 15 of the Madrid hearing acquits the accused by concluding that "the hypothesis of the accusation is not sufficiently proven", that "it does not reach the necessary standard beyond all reasonable doubt". .
The court adds that "it does not reach the necessary knowledge of the circumstances in which the sexual encounter took place, and less that this sexual encounter was without the consent of the witness."
The trial for these facts was held on January 31 and during it the Prosecutor's Office maintained its request for eight years in prison for Mulero, considering it proven that the defendant, as manager of a company in Malgrat de Mar (Barcelona), committed a crime of sexual assault against a contracted.
According to the prosecutor's account, Mulero hired a 24-year-old girl as a telephone operator on May 9, 2018 and on May 14 he traveled with her to Madrid to take a training course.
A single room was reserved for the two of them and, after going out to dinner together, the young woman returned feeling bad, fell asleep and the defendant took the opportunity to remove her clothes and sexually assaulted her, without the young woman being able to avoid it due to her state of weakness and drowsiness. in which he was.
For her part, the young woman ratified her complaint, assuring that the then mayor abused her, while the defendant requested acquittal since they had a consensual relationship.
Josep Lluís Mulero resigned in February 2022 from his position as Deputy Mayor for Security of the Santa Susanna City Council after the Prosecutor's Office formalized the accusation against him.
Now the Court of Madrid acquits him, in a sentence handed down by three magistrates against which appeal is possible, understanding that "it has not been proven that the relations were maintained without the consent" of the woman, who after the alleged abuse continued to sleep in the same room as the defendant and the next day he was on a walk through Madrid with him.
Then they returned to Barcelona, where he accompanied her to her house and where she told him that she would not accept the job as a telephone operator because it would be uncomfortable.
The magistrates emphasize that when the central evidence is the statement of the alleged victim, which is also the one that undertakes the legal process, "the Court that judges the case must take extreme controls to verify the credibility of the victim, in such a way that they have of demanding powerful corroborations of the facts prosecuted".
And they conclude that "the foregoing casts many doubts on this Court in the sense that the victim was semi-conscious, or asleep, with loss or inhibition of her cognitive or volitional abilities, or with a significant or intense impairment, on the one hand, and that did not express their consent to the sexual relationship, on the other".
