"The accused Felipe Fernández Camero acted as the full organizer of a corrupt procedure within the Yaiza Town Hall, giving instructions to the other three defendants on the form, the moment and the amounts that should be paid to him, disposing of municipal funds according to his mere whim and monetary desire". This is how the Public Prosecutor's Office summarizes the alleged corrupt plot that allowed Camero's "illicit enrichment" and the "arbitrary plundering of public funds" from Yaiza, at least between 1996 and 2012.
During that period, Fernández Camero received from the Town Hall "at least" 970,752.28 euros (which is the figure that has been documented), for allegedly unprovided services and without even a legal contracting procedure. The payments included everything from alleged advisory services (apart from what he also charged as a lawyer in different lawsuits) to the payment of allowances, trips and taxis. And all this, according to the prosecutor, by virtue of a plan that Camero "devised" and for which he had a "verbal agreement with the other three defendants" in this case, which arises from a separate piece of the Yate case and whose instruction has already been concluded by Judge Arturo Valdés Trapote, head of the Court of Instruction Number 1 of Arrecife.
"The defendants Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes and Antonio Fernández Martín, in the exercise of their positions as Secretary-Interventor of the Town Hall, each of them, depending on the moment in which the latter replaced the former, failed to comply with the most basic supervisory and control obligations regarding the legality of public spending", complying with "the orders" of the then mayor, José Francisco Reyes, and allowing payments to Camero to be executed "without making the slightest objection despite the accumulation of illegalities that were committed, of which they were fully aware, in accordance with the distribution of roles and the guidelines given at all times by Felipe Fernández Camero", argues the indictment of prosecutor Ignacio Stampa.
Regarding Camero, the Prosecutor's Office maintains that he gave the "instructions" as a "specialist in administrative law, to create an appearance of legality in the actions of all of them, avoiding the most basic rules in matters of public procurement". Furthermore, he emphasizes that Camero himself was the one who "unilaterally set" the price of his alleged services, which also "increased by decision and verbal indication of the latter at the time and in the amount indicated by the latter".
Two "procedures" to "satisfy his excessive profit-making spirit"
In his writing, the prosecutor describes two "procedures" used by Fernández Camero to "satisfy his excessive profit-making spirit". In one of them, to "justify the illegal obtaining of municipal public funds, the defendants created the fictitious appearance that legal advisory services were being provided" by Camero, "simulating that they were awarded by the direct award or minor contract procedure".
Thus, from 1996 to 2012 he was charging a monthly amount for "advisory services". Over time, the figure was also increasing, from the 220,236 pesetas per month that he began charging in 1996, to the 1,984 euros per month that he ended up charging in 2008, which is the last year in which monthly payments are documented. In total, only for that alleged "advice", Camero took 229,395 euros from the Yaiza Town Hall (the last monthly payments of 2008 were paid in 2012, when Camero joined the Payment to Suppliers Plan).
"Such alleged advisory services were never provided, nor were they necessary, nor did they have any benefit for municipal public interests, with the consequent personal profit and correlative loss for public funds", the Prosecutor's Office maintains in its indictment, in which it requests 6 years in prison for Camero, Reyes and Bartolomé Fuentes, and 5 and a half years in prison for the other accused official.
No contracting file or justification of its need
Among another long list of irregularities and illegalities, the Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that "no contracting file or written agreement was ever processed to protect such payments", that "the object of the contract or service, nor its suitability, was never specified", that "the needs that were intended to be covered, nor its convenience, were never justified", nor was it justified why this service was necessary, when the Town Hall already had "the mandatory legal advice of the Corporation Secretary".
Furthermore, "an estimate of the amount of the price was not made taking into account the general market price, resulting in an absolute absence of justificatory and economic report that justifies the price paid and its reasonableness, especially burdensome for municipal interests in multiple minutes of those presented, given its amount". In fact, the prosecutor insists that the price of the amount was "variable according to the whim of Fernández Camero", who furthermore could not even have signed a contract with the Town Hall, since he incurred a cause of incompatibility, as he simultaneously held the position of secretary of the Arrecife Town Hall.
Precisely when Camero was disciplined by the Secretary of State for Territorial Organization of the State (in a sanction later confirmed by the Courts) and removed from his position in Arrecife for a serious and a very serious incompatibility offense, by also practicing as a lawyer and holding positions in companies in which the City Council participated, the Town Hall of Yaiza maintained its services but changed the payment method. Thus, since 2004, the income was not made in the name of Fernández Camero but of his company, Aldelfas 24 SL.
An "express prohibition" prevented his hiring
"In addition to the previous procedure", continues the prosecutor's writing, "Felipe Fernández Camero established, with the essential participation of the other three defendants, another way of satisfying his excessive economic desire to the detriment of the patrimonial interests of the Yaiza Town Hall". To this end, José Francisco Reyes awarded this same lawyer the representation of the Town Hall in different judicial proceedings, receiving payments of at least 741,357.19 euros for this other concept.
In this regard, the Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that there was an "express prohibition to hire said lawyer", given his status as secretary of the Arrecife Town Hall. Furthermore, "no contracting file was processed for the award or commission of even one of the judicial proceedings", exceeding "in many cases the legal limits for direct award".
Regarding these second payments, the prosecutor clarifies that "in some of the judicial "proceedings" for which Camero charged as a lawyer, his "effective intervention" has been accredited, although there is no "prior audit of the expense, nor of the capacity to act and professional qualification of the contractor, making payments without any audit control, beyond the registration of some data for accounting purposes". Furthermore, there are also "payments for unjustified advance fund provisions, as the specific provision of that service is not recorded, and in any case contrary to the principle of the service rendered, which prohibits the Town Hall from making advance payments for services".
Trips paid to Madrid and Gran Canaria
Likewise, the Prosecutor's Office adds that "allowances, attendance expenses and taxis were paid to the defendant without attribution to a specific invoiced contract or service". Among them, for example, 667 euros for "attendance expenses as a lawyer on behalf of the Town Hall in Madrid" on October 3, 2001, "without justifying in any way the amount of the same in terms of hotel, taxi and stay"; another 1,479 euros for "Madrid attendance expenses" on December 30, 2003; and 152 euros for "allowances and travel expenses to Las Palmas in procedures with the General Directorate of Urban Planning".
During the instruction of the Yate case, for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca, Fernández Camero was charged as the alleged "mastermind" and instigator of the criminal conduct of José Francisco Reyes, although his indictment was finally dismissed, as there was no evidence of that urban planning advice to the former mayor. And precisely as a result of this, a new investigation was opened for alleged embezzlement of public funds, for the payments that the lawyer received from the Town Hall for this concept.
"The facts described", concludes the indictment, "constitute the antipodes of the correct functioning of the institutions, causing an evident economic damage to the public cause, in addition to a devastating immaterial damage constituted by the loss of citizen confidence in them".
