The San Bartolomé City Council has won another lawsuit against the businessman José Vicente Montesinos, who was one of those convicted in the Montecarlo case for embezzling almost half a million euros from the City Council. The procedure that has just been resolved now dates back almost a decade, but in 2013 it was paralyzed at the request of the City Council, which alleged that there was criminal prejudice, since the investigation of the Montecarlo case was underway at that time.
With the appeal he filed in the Courts, Montesinos claimed the payment of an invoice of 2,524 euros that the City Council had refused to pay him with the arrival of a new government group, led by the socialist Marcial Martín. At that time, several payments were stopped to this businessman, who through the company Progestril SL was in charge of collecting taxes in San Bartolomé.
"All the invoices that the company Progestril presented to the City Council for collection are part of a corruption plot and do not respond to services actually provided," the City Council now emphasizes, after having won this new lawsuit before the Contentious-Administrative Court Number 1 of Las Palmas. In fact, it recalls that this was proven in the trial of this piece of the Montecarlo case, held in May 2019, in which all the defendants admitted the crimes they were accused of.
Along with Montesinos, the former auditor of San Bartolomé, Carlos Sáenz, the municipal treasurer, Luis Manuel Rodríguez, the former mayor of CC, Miguel Martín, and the former Councilor of Finance of the PP, Javier Betancort, were convicted.
After that sentence was handed down, this contentious procedure was reactivated for the claim of another invoice, whose payment was stopped by the following government group, and now the Court has sided with the City Council. "Justice is done," declared the mayor, Alexis Tejera, who states that "the City Council will pursue in the interest of the public all cases of corruption of which it becomes aware, as has been done with this case, going all the way, with the convicted persons currently returning the defrauded amounts by court order."