Lawyer Felipe Fernández Camero is now one step away from sitting in the dock for the first time. Judge Arturo Valdés has ordered the opening of oral proceedings in a separate piece of the Yate case, in which Camero is accused of embezzling public funds from the Yaiza City Council for his own benefit. In total, according to the Prosecutor's Office, Camero would have charged close to one million euros for services not provided or outside the legal procedure. Along with Camero, the former mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, the former municipal secretary, Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes (removed from office by a previous conviction), and the official Antonio Fernández Martín, who for a time acted as secretary-intervenor of the City Council, will be in the dock.
In the order opening the procedure to hold the trial, the magistrate also demands bonds worth more than 3 million euros from the accused. Specifically, Fernández Camero is required to deposit 1,294,336 euros, to "ensure the responsibilities" that could arise from the sentence. Part of that figure must also be answered jointly and severally by his company, Adelfas 24 S.L., for the amount of 415,636 euros, since some of the invoices were paid in the name of this company.
As for José Francisco Reyes, the judge demands a bond of 1,123,625 euros, while Vicente Bartolomé Fuentes and Antonio Fernández Martín will have to deposit 968,347 euros and 154,323 euros, respectively, depending on the payments to Camero that each of them authorized. The order, dated September 29 and already notified to the parties, warns that if these bonds are not deposited, the seizure of assets will be ordered to the accused until these amounts are covered.
"The Yaiza City Council must be compensated for all the damages caused", says the judge, who stresses that "from the examination of the proceedings" and "in view of the indictment filed by the Public Prosecutor and the private prosecution", it is necessary to adopt this precautionary measure to "avoid the frustration of civil liability that could be adopted in its day".
Petition for 6 years in prison
In the indictment, which was filed last July, prosecutor Ignacio Stampa asks for 6 years in prison and 10 years of disqualification for Fernández Camero, as the author of a continued crime of embezzlement, another of falsification of a commercial document and one more of malfeasance, in the latter case as an instigator. The same penalty of 6 years in prison and 10 years of disqualification is requested for the former mayor and the former secretary, for the crimes of embezzlement and malfeasance. As for Antonio Fernández Martín, he is asking for a total of 5 and a half years in prison and 9 years of disqualification for embezzlement, malfeasance and falsification of an official document.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, before being charged in the case, this official prepared a document "clearly mendacious in its content" in which he "certified" that Camero had indeed provided the services for which he charged. Fernández Martín signed the document as accidental secretary of the City Council, "a position he did not hold regularly at that time", so that the City Council could send it to the Court that was already investigating this separate piece of the Yate case.
The prosecutor accuses Camero of having obtained an "illicit enrichment" thanks to the "arbitrary looting of public funds" of the Yaiza City Council, at least, between 1996 and 2012. During that period, Fernández Camero received from the City Council "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 from alleged advisory services to the payment of unjustified 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, who followed his "instructions".
There was an "express prohibition" to hire Camero
In his writing, the prosecutor describes two "procedures" used by Fernández Camero to "satisfy his excessive profit motive." On the one hand, charging as a lawyer in different lawsuits of the Yaiza City Council, despite the fact that there was an "express prohibition" to hire this lawyer, given his status as secretary of the Arrecife City Council. According to the prosecutor, not only was no contracting file processed, despite the fact that they exceeded "in many cases the legal limits for direct award", but also payments were made, for example as provisions of funds", which are not "justified", "as the specific provision of that service is not recorded".
To all this were added the fixed monthly payments that Camero received from the City Council as "advisory services". Only for this alleged advice, Camero took 229,395 euros from the Yaiza City Council. "Such alleged advisory services were never provided, nor were they necessary, nor did they have any benefit for the municipal public interests, with the consequent personal profit and correlative loss for the public coffers", the Prosecutor's Office states in its indictment. Among other things, the prosecutor points out that "the needs that were intended to be covered were never justified, nor was their convenience", nor was it justified why this service was necessary, when the City Council already had "the mandatory legal advice of the Secretary of the Corporation".
During the investigation of the Yate case, for the massive granting of illegal licenses in Playa Blanca, Fernández Camero (who was also a lawyer for some of the main recipients of illegal licenses, including Juan Francisco Rosa) was charged as the alleged "mastermind" and instigator of the criminal conduct of José Francisco Reyes, although his indictment was eventually dismissed, as there was no evidence of such urban planning advice to the former mayor. However, precisely because no document was found to prove this advice, the prosecutor responsible for the case asked to open a new investigation for alleged embezzlement of funds, for the payments that the lawyer received from the City Council for this concept.
In addition to this case that is already ready to go to trial (pending only the resolution of the latest appeals filed by the parties), Fernández Camero is also charged in a piece of the Unión case, for his time as secretary of Arrecife under the Mayoralty of María Isabel Déniz. That piece of Unión, which is still in the investigation phase, focuses mainly on Arrecife's contract with Urbaser and the payments that this company received in exchange for alleged bribes. In it, Camero is charged with alleged crimes of bribery and alteration of public tenders.
