After years of unsuccessfully trying to overturn the Unión case, businessman Luis Lleó has finally decided to confess to the continued crime of bribery for which he is accused in this case. Faced with the imminence of the trial, and after seeing the cascade of appeals that he has been presenting rejected, Lleó registered a document last Tuesday in the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, requesting to reach an agreement and avoid holding the oral hearing, in which he was going to face the recordings in which the attempted bribery is negotiated and the confession of the other defendant in this piece, Fernando Becerra, whom he used as an intermediary.
"The facts subject to accusation are expressly recognized, admitting them", states the document presented by his lawyer. In addition, he also announces that "he desists from each and every one of the preliminary issues raised, as well as the complaint of violation of fundamental rights".
Lleó has been clinging to this alleged violation of rights since he was arrested and charged in this case a decade ago, focusing his defense on trying to overturn the entire Unión case. However, not only has he failed in these attempts, but the judgments that have already been handed down in other parts of the case, both by the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court, have strongly validated the investigation, even expressly praising the work of the magistrate who closed the procedure and the Public Prosecutor's Office.
Asks that the process be stopped and the jury not be formed
In his writing, Lleó asks the Court to "convene the parties to a hearing, without the need to continue with the processing of the process and the appointment and formation of the jury", thus making it clear that he wants to avoid the trial, which was going to be held before the Sixth Section but with a popular jury.
In addition, he expresses his commitment to "face the pecuniary responsibilities", announcing that before the hearing is held he will deposit the amount that is claimed as part of the sentence.
Regarding the sentence, the confession will imply a reduction with respect to the penalties initially requested by the Prosecutor's Office. In fact, with this step Lleó seeks an agreement of conformity with the Public Prosecutor's Office, which would have already begun to be negotiated but which would not yet be closed.
Mitigating factors to reduce the penalty
In his indictment, which is now more than six years old, the Prosecutor's Office asked for Luis Lleó the maximum penalty contemplated for this crime, which is six years in prison, as well as a fine of one million euros and 10 years of disqualification from employment or public office.
Now, when agreeing on the penalty, the mitigating circumstances of confession and payment of civil liability, as well as the time elapsed, will be taken into account. And it is that in case the conviction had arrived through a sentence -instead of through an agreement of conformity-, it is more than probable that the Chamber would have applied undue delays as a mitigating factor to reduce the penalty.
In the case of the businessmen convicted of bribery and embezzlement of public funds in the last sentence of the Unión case, the penalties imposed by the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court were between one and two and a half years in prison, applying in all cases a reduction for undue delays. In this regard, the Chamber itself assumed responsibility for this delay in its judgment, since the Investigating Court closed this piece in 2014 and it did not go to trial until 2018. And in the case of Lleó's piece, the indictment even dated from 2013.
An offer of bribery that was growing
The piece in which Luis Lleó is accused was the one that gave rise to the Unión case, when the then Minister of Territorial Policy of the Cabildo, Carlos Espino, denounced that this businessman had offered him a bribe using Fernando Becerra as an intermediary, to try to unblock the construction of the Costa Roja plot, at the entrance of Playa Blanca.
Throughout the indictment, the prosecutor reviewed the chronology of Costa Roja, which began in 2006, with the granting of a license by José Francisco Reyes to build "a macro-urbanization of 1,012 homes, 220 commercial premises and 2,559 parking spaces". At that time, the Cabildo filed an administrative litigation appeal in the courts, which stopped the development of that project, and the councilor Carlos Espino filed a criminal complaint for these facts. His complaint gave rise to another case that is still pending trial.
To try to stop these judicial proceedings and unblock the construction of Costa Roja, Luis Lleó "designed a criminal strategy to win the will" of Espino, according to the prosecutor and has now recognized the businessman. Thus, using Fernando Becerra as an intermediary, Lleó offered up to three alleged bribes to Espino, who denounced the facts and allowed the UCO to record the conversations they had for months.
In the first, they offered him an alleged commission of 400,000 euros, to be divided between Espino and Fernando Becerra, in exchange for the Cabildo withdrawing from the litigation it had initiated against the Costa Roja license granted by Reyes. In the second, the offer rose to 600,000 euros, and they asked him to include the Costa Roja land as buildable land in the Special Territorial Plan for Insular Tourist Planning that was being developed at that time.
Regularize illegal hotels
Finally, Becerra conveyed a final proposal to Espino, which included not only the development of Costa Roja, but also the regularization of the illegal hotels of other developers such as Juan Francisco Rosa. In this regard, the prosecutor points out that Lleó made Espino know that there was "an agreement with the owners of illegal hotels to buy pieces of land in Costa Roja", which in turn "would make available to the Cabildo free of charge", as alleged compensation for the legalization of their establishments. That is, "with the exception of the part of the land corresponding to the golf course and a residential project designed by Luis Lleó", which would have to be authorized.
In exchange, they promised Espino not only the 600,000 euros to be divided with Fernando Becerra, but also "a percentage of the price of each of the sales that Luis Lleó made to the owners of the illegal hotels in Yaiza".
In his indictment, the Prosecutor's Office also referred to the explanations that Fernando Becerra gave to Espino about how he could collect the bribe without leaving a trace. For this, among other things, he proposed "opening an account in a tax haven, such as Switzerland, to not leave any trace of the delivery of the money".
