The Provincial Court of Las Palmas has sentenced businessman and lawyer Luis Lleó to 15 months in prison for a crime of unfair administration and another of accounting falsehood in the management of family businesses that he shared with his brother and nephew. In addition, he must pay a fine of 4,500 euros and return more than 174,000 euros that he diverted from the accounts of those companies to others of which he was the sole partner.
The penalties imposed by the sentence are much lower than those claimed by both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecutions, represented by Lleó's brother and nephew, and the reason is that the Court has applied "highly qualified" undue delays in the processing of this case, which began ten years ago, as a mitigating factor. Thus, the delay in reaching trial has considerably reduced the penalties for the two crimes that have been considered proven, which could have led to prison sentences of several years. In fact, the Prosecutor's Office initially requested 4 years in prison only for the crime of unfair administration, while the private prosecutions claimed up to 13 years in prison, also adding the crimes of misappropriation, attempted fraud, obstruction of the exercise of the right of the partners and falsehood in corporate documents.
Of all of them, the Court has finally only considered that second crime of accounting falsehood, together with that of unfair administration, to be proven. "That opaque and self-interested action, together with the disinterest of his brother and nephew in the management, accounting and real estate issues, also led the accused to act without any type of limitation and, taking advantage of his position of dominance, to include an accounting entry for a total of 974,724.28 euros. Such action has unsuccessfully attempted to connect it with alleged professional services that he claims to have provided for the companies in question and of whose execution and collection there is no evidence whatsoever," the ruling states.
"Everything dominated by him and his criteria"
In this way, Lleó stated in the accounts of the family business that he was owed almost one million euros for work he had carried out. "He intends to give the appearance of an unreal accounting situation in order to simulate some matching, correct existing imbalances and/or simply appear to be dedicated to the family companies, when in truth in his actions as manager and administrator what has prevailed have been his particular and varied interests connected with other external companies, whose financial and accounting problems he has mixed and treated jointly and unitarily, as a whole dominated by him and his criteria," concludes the Court.
Regarding the crime of unfair administration, the origin lies in the contracting of bank discount policies, which are used to have liquidity. Lleó used the family businesses to access this product, but then used it for the benefit of his own companies. In total, he obtained before its expiration the amount related to 11 promissory notes, which generated an expense of more than 52,000 euros to the companies he shared with his brother and nephew.
In addition, almost all the money he obtained in advance, which amounted to more than 1.8 million euros, went to his own companies, in some cases supposedly justified, with an "accounting support in the provision of professional services", but most without justification.
"Accounting confusion"
The ruling refers to the "existing accounting confusion and the doubts that arise about the specific number of transfers of funds that were finally made effective, doubts that extend to their temporary or definitive scope", which has led him to dismiss the crime of misappropriation. In any case, he considers that "what remains clear and proven is that they served the accused to try to justify situations and try to fix financial problems unrelated to the company in whose favor the bank discount policies were agreed, the promissory notes were issued and their discount was obtained in advance, with the consequent damage to it".
Thus, the Court concludes that Luis Lleó acted "in his own way" and that he managed "the management and accounting of the aforementioned family companies at will". And that he extended "that policy and that way of proceeding to the other companies only linked to him, applying a unitary accounting practice to all of them, doing and undoing as it suited him".
Regarding the sums that it has become clear that he diverted to other companies without any justification, are those that he will now have to return, in addition to the figure corresponding to the bank charges generated with those operations.
Another previous conviction annulled
Although this is the second conviction for Luis Lleó, the previous one -also for a crime of unfair administration of family businesses- was annulled. In that case, the first instance ruling corresponded to the Criminal Court Number 1 of Arrecife and later the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court upheld Lleó's appeal, revoking the conviction.
Now, it has been the First Section of the Court that has issued the first instance ruling, due to the seriousness of the crimes and the penalties that were requested, and Luis Lleó's possible appeal must be filed with the Supreme Court.
