The defense of the Andalusian ex-counselor Carmen Martínez Aguayo and the general director of IFA-IDEA Miguel Ángel Serrano, both in prison for the fraudulent ERE case, have asked the Seville Court to review their respective prison sentences after the reform of the crime of embezzlement.
The lawyers of both defendants, according to the writings to which EFE has had access, have requested the court to review the sentence as a result of the entry into force of Organic Law 14/2022, which substantially modifies the embezzlement of public funds with lighter sentences than those of the crime for which they were convicted.
Regarding Aguayo, who is serving a six-year prison sentence for the political piece of the false ERE, the Chamber is asked to partially revoke the sentence and instead, maintaining the proven facts, acquit her of the crime of embezzlement of the article 432 of the Criminal Code, or sentenced for a crime of the current article 433 in its non-aggravated modality, with the revocation of the prison sentence imposed and maintaining only the disqualification.
Secondarily, she asks that she be acquitted of the crime of embezzlement in article 432 and sentenced instead for the current one of article 433, with a sentence of two and a half years in prison, and disqualification for four years.
Regarding Miguel Ángel Serrano, sentenced for his part to six and a half years in prison, it is requested that the current article 433 of the Penal Code be equally applied for the conduct of proven facts, taking into account that in the list of proven facts there is no it is described that the budget deviation has caused serious damage to the service to which the embezzled funds were originally attached, covering the IFA-IDEA profit account.
In this case, the penalty to be imposed, after the review, must be disqualified from employment or public office for one to three years and a fine of three to twelve months, without deprivation of liberty, as stated in the brief presented before the Court of Seville.
In statements to EFE, Juan Carlos Alférez, Serrano's lawyer, has indicated that, although the application of the new article 433 to other cases in which there have been firm convictions for embezzlement, is "highly improbable", the peculiarity and complexity of the ERE case makes it possible, in this specific case, to apply the new and more favorable article 433 instead of the old article 432 for which they were convicted.
In this sense, he recalled that in the trial of the "political piece of the ERE" individual aid was not prosecuted, and the court expressly resolved in a sentence that this was left out of the prosecution: "This is the key on which it rests "The argument of the review. Therefore, we are not, even by approximation, before a penal reform of the depth of that of sexual assaults that is going to generate a cascade of ex officio reviews of convictions," he explained.
This lawyer is unaware of the procedural times to decide on the documents presented, but he understands that, since it is a case with a prisoner, the law gives the incident priority over the rest of the matters.
According to Alférez, the court will resolve in the sense it deems appropriate after hearing the rest of the procedural parties, defenders and accusers, and it is also possible to appeal before the Supreme Court before the decision that the Court finally adopts by the party that feels harmed.
