The jury court will try from today until December 21, at the Valencia Court, the former mayor of Gandia Arturo Torró and a businessman for the alleged crimes of embezzlement of public funds and fraud in contracting in the award of services audiovisual communication between 2012 and 2015.
According to the indictment of the Public Ministry, Torró (then in the PP), through a municipal company, conceived, promoted and assumed the obligation to pay the company that managed the other defendant, the businessman Ricardo Manuel Faura, various amounts of public money, despite knowing that there was no reason to justify it and causing clear damage to public coffers.
The Prosecutor's Office requests an eight-year prison sentence for both defendants, the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV) advances this Friday. Torró governed Gandia from 2011 to 2015, being the only mayor of the PP.
In his indictment, the prosecutor points out that in December 2011 "the municipal public company "Iniciatives Publiques de Gandia-S.A.U" (I.P.G. S.A.U.) - received a management assignment from the Gandia City Council to carry out the communication activities that until its closing shortly before it had been playing on municipal television".
This company contracts with Comarques Centrals Televisió S.L and Inversiones Especiales del Mediterráneo S.L. (Tele 7), for amounts of 1,770,000 and 1,768,584 euros respectively, in February 2012.
A year later, in February 2013, Public Initiatives of Gandia S.L. and the mercantile Comarques Centrals Televisió S.L. they resolved the contract "for alleged unspecified difficulties, assuming the public company the obligation to pay Comarques Centrals Televisió S.L. the amount of 500,000 euros of public money, knowing that there was no reason to justify it", adds the prosecutor.
Torró, "taking advantage of his condition as mayor of the Gandia City Council and president of the Board of Directors of IPG, using the municipal company IPG, conceived, promoted and assumed the obligation to pay Comarques Centrals Televisió S.L. the amount of 500,000 euros of public money, knowing that there was no reason to justify it, causing clear damage to public coffers".
The Public Ministry requests for Torró the sentence of 8 years in prison, with the accessory of special disqualification for the right to passive suffrage during the sentence, absolute disqualification for 20 years, and payment of procedural costs.
The Public Ministry requests the same penalty for Ricardo Manuel Faura, administrator of the mercantile company Comarques Centrals Televisió S.L., based in Xàtiva, whom it considers complicit in these events.
Both must also pay the Gandia City Council, for the damage caused to public coffers, 480,000 euros, plus legal interest.
Also summoned to the trial, among others, are the current councilor of the PP of Gandia Antonio Abad and Cristina Serrano, former adviser to the Department of Economy and Finance of the consistory, and who was a senior position in the Ministry of the Environment during the mandates of former ministers Rafael Blasco, Esteban González Pons and Juan Cotino.
