The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence issued by the National Court in 2020 on the piece by Gürtel referring to the irregular contracts that this network made with the Valencian administration on the occasion of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Valencia in July 2006. It was a corrupt operation that used the management of the old Valencian regional television Channel 9 to carry out the contract for the screens, sound systems and public address system to cover the arrival of the Pontiff, and that allowed those involved to divert some 3 bites into their pockets ,2 million euros.
The high court thus confirms the sentence of 13 years and seven months in prison for the leader of the plot, Francisco Correa; at 15 years and five months, at his right hand, Pablo Crespo, and at six years and nine months, at his collaborator Álvaro Pérez, the Bigotes. The former general director of Channel 9, Pedro García, is also sentenced. The prosecutor requested at the beginning of the trial for forty years in prison against him, but his collaboration in the investigation allowed him to see the sentence reduced to six years and nine months. Another key piece of the plot is the vice president and shareholder of Teconsa, José Luis Martínez Parra, sentenced to 11 years and seven months in prison. Teconsa was the shell company through which the Gürtel network carried out the contracts.
In total, the court handed down prison sentences against 19 of the 23 defendants for various crimes such as prevarication, embezzlement, fraud, bribery and money laundering. The sentence considered proven that the direct award to Teconsa was "clearly illegal", since the defendants from Gürtel and the former general director of Radiotelevisión Valenciana (RTVV) agreed to award the contract and later the file was formally prepared, with the collaboration of the employees of the former public entity who have been sentenced.
The defendants coordinated to illegally award a contract of 6.46 million euros plus VAT (7.49 million in total). Subsequently, bribes worth 3.2 million were distributed by preparing false invoices and using the Leonese construction company Teconsa as a front company.
The former Valencian minister and former director general of the National Police, Juan Cotino, was also prosecuted and tried, but died of coronavirus.
