Several witnesses have stated in the session this Tuesday in the trial against Laura Borràs that they presented false budgets at the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. The fraudulent mechanics was already reported by Isaías Herrero in the previous session in which he explained that he presented his budget accompanied by two others who were false and who simply played the role of "comparsa" because he already knew that he would be the successful bidder. from work. During the session on Tuesday, several witnesses have ratified the operation and have shown that Herrero used his personal data without his permission to present budgets to the ILC. “The truth is that I am hallucinating. I am impressed that this is here, it totally surprises me, ”said one of the witnesses when the prosecutor showed him one of the budgets that were presented in his name without her consent.
The protocol of the Generalitat indicated that for those works greater than 3,000 euros, three budgets had to be presented and awarded to the most favorable offer. All this is recorded in the contract file. In this case, as the beneficiary was always Herrero, the budgets that were presented were merely instrumental. To do this, the defendant asked his entourage if he could present budgets in his name. One of those chosen was his brother-in-law who has testified today in the trial. He recalled that on his day he refused to have the budgets presented in his name because he was not self-employed. However, prosecutor Assumpta Pujol has produced several documents that were allegedly submitted by him to the ILC. "I did not make these budgets nor did I authorize Herrero to do them," she lamented.
The Prosecutor's Office requests six years in prison for Herrero and Laura Borràs for document falsification and prevarication. In this Tuesday's session, they wanted to demonstrate the falsehood and for this reason the prosecutor has been reviewing each of the budgets that were attached to the contract file. During yesterday's statement in which Herrero aired the irregular operation of billing in the ILC, he assured that he followed the instructions of the Junts leader and it was even she who provided him with the names to prepare the comparsa budgets.
There was another person to whom Herrero went to make the false estimates. It was a friend, Marina A., who helped him when he spiraled into addictions that prevented him from continuing with his work. "He told me that he needed to make invoices of less than 18,000 euros but I told him no, that it didn't seem legal to me," she explained. Another of the witnesses who has appeared before the court was Aleix C., who was part of the Hermeneia literary studies research group directed by Laura Borràs. "It seems that I am in the cinema and I am being surprised by what appears here," he commented when seeing how there were budgets in his name that he had never presented. This witness did not know Herrero and her only link to the case is Laura Borràs, with which the prosecutor suspects that her data was provided by Borràs to Herrero to prepare the budget.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, with the aim of offering a "pretend appearance" regarding the principles of publicity and public competition and to hide their illegal action, Laura Borràs and Isaías Herrero agreed that in each of the files they would provide three budgets on behalf of different suppliers. , two of which were not real offers but falsely elaborated comparsa budgets with the purpose of simulating that the award was made to the best bidder". "All those budgets, continues the prosecutor, were made by Isaías Herrero and in some cases by Laura Borràs The then director of the ILC "with abuse of her functions" proposed the contract, approved the expense and awarded 18 minor contracts for an amount of 335,000 euros to Isaías Herrero without justifying that it was the most advantageous proposal.
