The trial against journalist Alfonso Canales and his brother, Juan Luis Canales, was adjourned for sentencing this Wednesday with a request for two years in prison by the Public Prosecutor's Office and up to 9 years in prison by the private prosecution, which also claims compensation of hundreds of thousands of euros. Both agree that the two defendants appropriated the digital newspaper Crónicas de Lanzarote in 2009, after the death of the founder and administrator of the company, taking advantage of the fact that they had control of the website's passwords, one as a journalist and the other as a computer scientist.
At that time, according to the two indictments, Canales went to the Registry of Trademarks and Patents to register the name of the newspaper, which actually belonged to the company Opciones Creativas, where he worked as editor-in-chief. Later, when one of the owners of the company, who had also become the sole administrator after the death of her uncle, found out, she decided to fire Alfonso Canales and demanded that he hand over the access codes to the website, which he refused to do.
"With the intention of obtaining an illicit patrimonial benefit and acting in common agreement, they took over the aforementioned internet domain and the website hosted there, refusing to hand over the corresponding access passwords to the owner company," the Prosecutor's Office states in its indictment, in which it points out that "from the month of October 2009 to the present", the two defendants have been exploiting the digital newspaper that was hosted in said domain" and "have prevented the legitimate use by its owners".
"Did he contribute the website to the group altruistically?"
In his statement as a defendant during the trial, held before the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, Alfonso Canales has defended that he "encouraged" Agustín Acosta to found a new multimedia communication group in 2006, which among other things included a radio station and a local television channel. However, although the newspaper Crónicas de Lanzarote was also part of that same group, Canales has defended that his brother and he created that website and that it "had nothing to do" with Opciones Creativas.
"I proposed including it in the group to increase dissemination and influence," alleged the journalist, who was only listed as editor-in-chief of that digital newspaper, and he himself has even acknowledged that there was a director above him. In addition, the lawyer for the prosecution has stressed that the website itself named Agustín Acosta as the founder and the company Opciones Creativas, owned by María José Acosta, as the owner of the rights to the page.
"Do you say that you contributed the website to the communication group altruistically?" the prosecutor asked him. "My idea was to create a medium with a future projection. He had an expiration date," he replied in reference to the founder of the company, adding that he was the one who could "continue" that project later, of which he was only listed as an employee. In fact, the owner of the company was and has continued to be the niece of Agustín Acosta, who filed this complaint and is appearing in the case as a private prosecution.
Canales acknowledged the complainant as the owner of the website in a program
"For me it was disastrous. It was the end of the company, the absolute bankruptcy," declared the complainant during the trial, who after the death of her uncle also assumed the role of sole administrator. In addition, she explained that when the inauguration party of this media group was held in 2006, Alfonso Canales was present and at no time was he presented as the owner of the digital newspaper. "He wasn't even a director, he was a writer, editor-in-chief," she stressed.
Later, when she had to fire this journalist after learning that he had gone to register the newspaper's trademark in his name, she said that Alfonso Canales sent her a letter in which he informed her that he "terminated the collaboration agreement" between Crónicas and Opciones Creativas. "I can't give you an explanation because that contract didn't exist," she said when asked by the prosecutor.
In fact, the defendants have not provided either that alleged collaboration agreement, nor any document that justifies that they were the owners of that digital newspaper. Even, during the trial an audio was also reproduced at the request of the prosecution, in which Alfonso Canales is heard saying that María José Acosta is the owner of cronicasdelanzarote.es. The audio corresponds to a radio program in which Canales spoke about the owner of the group and defended her work at the head of the company, shortly before he himself went to register the newspaper in his name and was fired.
For its part, the defense has asked that this audio be annulled, alleging that it had not been provided through the appropriate channel and that it had not been "compared". "They have not denied that it is his voice," stressed the lawyer for the prosecution when presenting his conclusions, while the prosecutor pointed out that "the facts have been proven and demonstrated" during the hearing.
Two key invoices that dismantle the defense
As for the documentary evidence provided to the procedure, what is on record is that Alfonso Canales' brother was the one who created the page and registered the domain in 2006. According to the Prosecutor's Office, he did so on behalf of Opciones Creativas and charged for it, since it is proven in the case that he later charged two invoices to the company, one for the registration of the domain and another for the development of the website. However, what Juan Luis Canales did in 2006 was to put the domain in his name.
"The invoices are not real", "they have nothing to do with my brother", Alfonso Canales has argued to try to dismantle one of the main pieces of evidence that undermine his line of defense. "I don't know. They are not mine. They will have to explain it," said Juan Luis Canales for his part. However, the expert who has testified in the trial has confirmed that the handwriting matches that of Alfonso Canales, who would have signed those invoices both in his name and in that of his brother, who at that time resided in Madrid, and who according to the prosecution was hired to launch a website for Opciones Creativas.
However, the defendant has denied having charged anything from Opciones Creativas - contrary to what the company's administrator has stated - and has defended that it was a project of his brother. In addition, he began by pointing out that he took charge of creating the website and paying the domain registration expenses to help his brother, although he later qualified that they shared it "50 percent". But despite this, he then assured that he has not "benefited economically", that he has not received "any remuneration for that domain" and that he does not even know if they contract advertising or how they do it.
In addition, he has also claimed not to remember the invoices that his own defense provided to the case, on the alleged expenses that he personally faced when launching the website. "Regardless of whether he is your brother, do you have expenses of 1,000 euros a year and not get any benefit?" the prosecutor asked him. "I don't know if it's 1,000 euros. I'm surprised," replied the defendant, despite the fact that his own lawyer handed over those invoices.
"We did not contract advertising in exchange for money"
For his part, when asked by the Prosecutor's Office about the economic management of the website, Alfonso Canales has assured that between 2006 and 2009, when he was only listed as editor-in-chief, the website did not obtain income from advertising, and that they only began to have them later. "Well, by God," replied the prosecutor. "We did not contract advertising in exchange for money. We contracted with friends," Alfonso Canales has stated, when the Public Prosecutor's Office intended to reflect that the alleged ownership of the page was not real.
In fact, it was after taking control after his dismissal when he founded a new company with two other partners - among whom his brother was not even included - Promedia, through which they began to invoice advertising both for the website and for the radio that he created later. "The newspaper really doesn't invoice anything", "what really invoices is the radio", he added during the trial, in which the prosecution asks him to compensate the owner with all the income he has received in advertising since 2009.
During the hearing, the defense has provided several witnesses - almost all former employees of Opciones Creativas who later went on to work for Alfonso Canales - who have stated that he was the one who "attended" the digital newspaper between 2006 and 2009 and even that they "heard him say" that he was the owner. However, they have all also stated that the position he held in the company was that of editor-in-chief.
"They are like Pepe Gotera and Otilio"
"There is not a single document that confirms the falsehoods they have released," questioned the lawyer for the private prosecution in his conclusions. "They are like Pepe Gotera and Otilio, they seem like the handymen of the radio. They have left their messes all over the place," he added in reference to everything that has been put on the table during the hearing, including those invoices whose authenticity they intend to deny.
"What there was is the theft of a newspaper. Here what has been done is to take a newspaper away from a company. This is the seriousness of the matter and we have been going on for 9 years," he lamented, stressing that during that time the defendants "have done and undone what they wanted" and the legitimate owners "have lost control".
In addition, he has questioned the statement of the defense witnesses. "It is difficult for someone to be in a company for five months and know these things," he said in reference to one of them, who began working for Opciones Creativas shortly before the death of Agustín Acosta and has assured that he heard him say that the "owner" of the website was Alfonso Canales, with whom he continued working when he took control of the newspaper.
"You have to be a little respectful when you come to a Room. You have to be serious," questioned the lawyer, who considers that "only the documentary evidence" in the case "is sufficient for the conviction." In addition, in reference to the constant references of the defendants and the defense about the economic problems that Opciones Creativas was going through in 2009, he pointed out that it is irrelevant. "That does not give them the right to appropriate a website," he emphasized, after having also highlighted during the trial that the owner had purchase offers that she could not negotiate because they had taken control of the page.
The prosecution raises the penalties and qualifies the facts as theft
In the case of the Public Prosecutor's Office, it qualifies the facts as constitutive of a crime of misappropriation or coercion by the two defendants, for which it asks for the same penalty of two years in prison for both, as well as that they compensate the company that owns that website with 12,000 euros, which is the price at which the domain has been valued, and that they hand over to the legitimate owner the access codes that they used to take control of the page.
For its part, the private prosecution considers Alfonso Canales responsible for a crime of theft ?"because it is not only the appropriation of an internet domain but the theft of a newspaper"-, or alternatively of two crimes of misappropriation, one of them continued, for which it raises the request for a penalty to between 6 and 9 years in prison, depending on the qualification of the crime that the Chamber deems in case of conviction.
In addition, it asks for a fine of 7,200 euros for him and that he compensate the injured parties with 12,000 for the value of the domain plus all the money corresponding to the invoicing that they have collected in advertising since 2009. Only between 2010 and 2011, the expert report provided by the prosecution indicates that these revenues were 123,622 euros, and to that amount would have to be added that of the subsequent years and until the return of the digital newspaper occurs.
As for the brother, who is a computer scientist and according to the prosecution was the one who made this theft or misappropriation possible, he asks for three years in prison and a fine also of 7,200 euros, in addition to the obligation to respond jointly to the payment of compensation to Opciones Creativas, both for the domain and for the advertising revenues of almost a decade.
