One of the convicts in the Montecarlo case, Javier Betancort, has now requested a pardon from the Council of Ministers, as a last resort to try to avoid entering prison. However, although after requesting it he asked for the execution of the sentence to be postponed and his request has not yet been resolved, other sources have confirmed to La Voz that he would already be in the Tahíche Penitentiary Center since last week.
Betancort was convicted in two parts of Montecarlo: one for the looting of almost half a million euros from the San Bartolomé City Council, where he was a finance councilor, and another for the embezzlement of 300,000 euros from the Arrecife City Council, where he charged invoices for services not provided after leaving politics.
In both proceedings, Betancort ended up confessing to the crimes before the trial began and obtained a reduction of the sentences, none exceeding two years in prison. However, in the case of the second, the Provincial Court rejected his request to suspend the execution of the sentence and ordered his imprisonment last October, among other things because he had not returned the embezzled money, as he promised to do when accepting the agreement of conformity.
Since then, the Court has rejected all his appeals and on February 24, given that he had not yet voluntarily entered the Tahíche Penitentiary Center, he was summoned to the Arrecife Courts to notify him of the order of imprisonment within a maximum period of one day.
His lawyer then presented a new writing communicating that he had requested a pardon two weeks before, and asking that the execution of the sentence be suspended until it was resolved. In her writing, the lawyer recognized that the request for a pardon does not stop the fulfillment of the sentence, but stressed that this can be agreed by the court, after also collecting the criteria of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusation. The Court requested these reports on March 1 and it is not yet recorded that they have been issued, but Betancort would have already entered prison last week, awaiting the resolution of his request.
Both in his pardon request and in the writing he addressed to the Court, Javier Betancort states that he is "repentant", although he acknowledges that he has not paid the civil liability of that sentence, which is an indispensable requirement to suspend imprisonment. However, he argues that he has "justified the impossibility of making it effective at this time".
He claims he could pay 100 euros per month "with great sacrifice"
"The appellant from the beginning does not intend to pay what was defrauded, since he does not even speak of partial compliance. It is not recorded that he has paid any amount, or that he has offered assets for his payment, or that he has tried to obtain some type of financing to comply with the civil liability, or that in some way he has shown his willingness to pay. This passivity of the convict simply reveals his will not to pay anything at all of the 287,175 euros of defrauded public money, and therefore one of the necessary conditions to suspend the sentence is not met," the Court argued when rejecting to suspend his imprisonment.
Now, Betancort alleges that he is paying in installments the first sentence, in which he also confessed to crimes of prevarication and embezzlement in San Bartolomé, and argues that he will pay the second also in installments once he has paid the previous one, or "when he lived to better fortune".
However, in the pardon request, he now points out that "he can commit to paying 100 euros per month with great personal and family sacrifice, since he is the only one who works in his family nucleus". If this fractionation is accepted, it would take about 240 years just to return the money embezzled from the Arrecife City Council.
He appeals to his work roots and his "recognition" in Rosa's company
He repeatedly appeals to his family and his children in that pardon request, and also to his work roots. In this regard, he points out that he has been working for seven years as manager of the company Lancelot Medios, which is owned by businessman Juan Francisco Rosa, and that he has "the recognition of his boss and his colleagues, being an appreciated person".
He even assures that the "managers and employees" have signed supporting this pardon request, along with other friends and family, who "recognize in Javier Betancor a man who has been able to overcome the mistake made and the social consequences of the crimes committed". In addition, he insists that in the judicial procedure he expressed "not only his repentance but also his collaboration with Justice". However, it should be remembered that this confession did not arrive until the moment of the trial, years after the instruction had begun, during which he denied his participation in the events.
At that time, when accepting the agreement of conformity by which he obtained a significant reduction in the sentence, Betancort promised to return the embezzled money, as he had also done in the piece of San Bartolomé. However, now he alleges that he cannot face that payment
In this regard, he argues that he has no assets in his name, that he lives with his family in a rented house and that they only have his salary as manager of Juan Francisco Rosa's communication company. In addition, he recalls that he was declared insolvent by the Chamber itself, which has ordered several embargoes on his account to try to cover the sums he owes. "He had meager amounts," his lawyer points out about the result of those embargoes.
His own lawyer also joins this pardon request, stating that until his arrest in this case, Javier Betancort "had not been in a Court as an investigated", that he was 32 years old when the events occurred and that in recent years "he has struggled to demonstrate to the society of Lanzarote and to his family that he could lead a life as a worthy and exemplary worker and good father".
Javier Betancort entered politics with the PP and became Finance Councilor of San Bartolomé in the 2003-2007 legislature, replacing Cándido Reguera. There he incurred in the first crimes for which he was convicted, authorizing the payment of false invoices to the companies of José Vicente Montesinos, who was in charge of the management of taxes of the City Council. Later, when leaving the Consistory, he began to work for Montesinos and they moved the plot to Arrecife, where they also charged for services not provided. The mayor in the capital at that time was Cándido Reguera, who was charged in both pieces of Montecarlo but died during the instruction.
In theory, Javier Betancort made supposed tender specifications for the Arrecife City Council, but another of the investigated, the also deceased José Miguel Rodríguez, confessed that the prices "were exorbitant" and that those specifications were not even necessary nor were they delivered. "I did not see any specification. They were never made. I only saw two drafts and they were the same, only the object changed," Rodríguez confessed during the instruction, leaving a testimony that was later confirmed with the confession in the trial of the accused.
