The couple who was tried on December 16 for alleged corporate crimes and document forgery committed against their partner in a workshop on the island has been acquitted of all charges. “The evidence presented has not been sufficient to overturn the principle of presumption of innocence,” the ruling states, issued by the Criminal Court Number 1 of Arrecife.
The Prosecutor's Office was asking for 4 years in prison for F.C.A. and another 4 for E.C.R.H., as well as the payment of compensation to who was their partner in the company Taller Clavijo Lanzarote S.L, but the ruling considers that it has not been proven that they acted to “obtain an illicit benefit” and harm the interests of the third partner, as the prosecution argued.
Regarding a promissory note in which his signature was allegedly falsified, the ruling emphasizes that up to three expert reports were presented, one inconclusive and the other two - one of them provided by the defense - with disparate conclusions about the authorship of that signature.
In addition, it is also not considered proven that the plaintiff was denied access to the company's accounting information, and emphasizes that he was a joint administrator to have claimed the exercise of his rights.
Regarding the fact that the accused later opened another workshop, the ruling also does not consider it proven that they took the machines and tools from the previous business, “nor that they attracted customers and suppliers from the previous workshop to the new one through deception, nor that they subrogated the employees.”
On this point, it refers to the statement made by several workers who continued to provide services for the accused after the closure of the first company. They all agreed on the same story, assuring that they went to the workshop one day and found it closed, although they did not clarify whether they were compensated for dismissal or whether they initiated actions to claim their rights. What they did maintain is that it was a month later when they started working in the new workshop that the accused opened, and that they were the ones who came to ask them for work, after learning that they had this new business.
In the ruling, the magistrate of the Criminal Court Number 1 appeals to the principle of presumption of innocence and cites different jurisprudence to emphasize that “probability, plausibility or suspicion is not enough” to issue a conviction.
However, it also refuses to impose the payment of costs on the complainant, who was exercising the private prosecution, as requested by the accused. “Neither reckless exercise nor the absence of good faith is accredited,” the ruling adds, recalling that it was the Investigating Court that ordered the opening of oral proceedings and that there was “a well-founded accusation from the Public Prosecutor,” without appreciating a “malicious attitude” on the part of the plaintiff.
