CONFIRMS THE EXISTENCE OF A PLOT FOR THE GRANTING OF ILLEGAL LICENSES

The Yate case already has a sentence: 9 confessed defendants convicted and Mesa and Lorenzo acquitted

The Court imposes the penalties that had been accepted in the agreements of conformity. In the case of Reyes, the sentence is 6 years in prison

April 21 2017 (12:26 WEST)
The Yate case already has a sentence: 9 confessed defendants are convicted and Mesa and Lorenzo are acquitted
The Yate case already has a sentence: 9 confessed defendants are convicted and Mesa and Lorenzo are acquitted

Eleven years after the investigation began, the Yate case already has a sentence, and confirms that there was a plot for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca. In its ruling, the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas condemns the 9 defendants who confessed during the trial and acquits the other two: the head of the Technical Office of Yaiza, Antonio Lorenzo, and the tax advisor José Rafael Mesa Ferrer.

As for the rest, it imposes the penalties they had accepted, upon reaching an agreement of conformity with the Prosecutor's Office. In the case of the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, he has been sentenced to 6 years in prison and 21 years of disqualification, in addition to paying a fine of more than 300,000 euros, which he had already deposited before the trial (this amount includes the fine imposed on Reyes and those that four members of his family had to pay). The assets acquired with the money from the bribes will also be confiscated.

Along with Reyes, his wife and three of his children have been sentenced to 5 and a half months in prison for a crime of money laundering. For his part, the former secretary of Yaiza, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes, who acknowledged that he committed a crime by reporting in favor of the Playa Blanca Partial Plan and the Marina Rubicón marina, his sentence is one year in prison and more than 10 years of disqualification, as well as the payment of a fine of 720 euros. In addition to crimes against land management, the former secretary has also been convicted of embezzlement, like Reyes, for having allowed private trips of the former mayor to be paid with money from the Yaiza City Council.

As for the people who helped Reyes launder the money through shell companies, Benito Mesa Ferrer, Simeón Camacho and Antonio Marcelo Machín have been sentenced, with penalties of between 5 months and 5 and a half months in prison, in addition to the payment of fines of 71,920, 20,000 and 20,000 euros.

 

Antonio Lorenzo's report was not "binding"


Regarding the acquittal of the head of the Technical Office of Yaiza, Antonio Lorenzo, the ruling considers that the report he issued in the file to approve the Urbanization Project of the illegal Playa Blanca Partial Plan was not "binding". Thus, it accepts Lorenzo's defense argument, which argued in the trial that he only issued a "procedural" report. In this regard, the Court points out that this report "was to initiate the processing, not for the approval of the urbanization project", although later "without further procedure the resolution was issued" by the former mayor, approving this urbanization project, "this one being constitutive of the crime of malfeasance".

Furthermore, regarding Antonio Lorenzo, the ruling states that "it never depended essentially on his will, not even on his non-binding report, that the content of the issued resolution was one and not another. Nor that if his conduct had been different, the final resolution adopted by a third party (the former mayor) would not have been maintained in the same terms, who has acknowledged the facts and agreed with the penalties, because we insist that the report was positive for the processing of the project, not for its final approval".

In this regard, the Court recalls that in the Penal Code that was in force when the events occurred, which is the one that must be applied, "the authority or public official who, knowing of its injustice, has favorably informed planning instruments, urbanization projects, subdivision, re-parceling, construction or building or the granting of licenses contrary to the rules of territorial planning, was not punished autonomously", as the current Penal Code does include, "but only referred to building projects or the granting of licenses".

It should be remembered that Lorenzo still has another pending case, arising from a separate piece of the Yate case, where what is being investigated is each subsequent license granted within that partial plan. And it is that although during the trial he stated that his report was only "procedural" and that he "believed" that afterwards his "colleagues had to issue others", the truth is that he was also the technician who continued reporting on the granting of each license within that Plan.

 

Acquits José Rafael Mesa and condemns only his brother


Regarding José Rafael Mesa Ferrer, who was accused of a crime of money laundering, the ruling considers that it has not been proven that he directly intervened in advising the former mayor to launder his illicit money. Thus, although he was a joint administrator of the company Management & Consulting Lanzarote, through which Reyes' money was laundered, the Court understands that only the direct participation of the other partner of that company and José Rafael's brother, Benito Mesa Ferrer, has been proven. The latter did acknowledge the facts during the trial and accepted the penalty requested by the Prosecutor's Office.

"We do not have any personal evidence that implicates José Rafael Mesa Ferrer in tax or any other type of advice, neither to Mr. Reyes nor to his son José Abel Reyes Torres," the ruling states. Regarding the fact that this defendant had provided a house free of charge to a daughter of the former mayor for years, it points out that "it would only demonstrate that there was a relationship of friendship" between them, but not that he actively participated in the laundering.

In their statements in the trial, both the former mayor and his son only expressly pointed to José Rafael's brother, who is the one who has been convicted. And although the two were partners of the company through which the money laundering was carried out, the ruling considers that "it was not a crime committed in the business organizational sphere, in which various people normally intervene among whom decisions and omissions are distributed, but rather the material authors of the crime of laundering, in this case, José Francisco Reyes and his son José Francisco Abel Reyes, point to Manuel Benito Mesa Ferrer as the sole collaborator and facilitator of the laundering".

However, it should be remembered that although during the trial Reyes only referred to Benito Mesa, in the confession he previously submitted in writing he referred to both brothers, admitting that he "agreed with these defendants" that a shell company be established "and to manage it through the company Management & Consulting Lanzarote SL".

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