The second section of the Provincial Court of Valencia has sentenced the former ‘popular’ mayor of Gandia (Valencia), Arturo Torró, to three and a half years in prison for embezzlement in the award of audiovisual communication services between the years 2012 to 2015 in the consistory.
This is clear from the sentence, to which Europa Press has had access, in which the court condemns him as the author of a crime of embezzlement of public funds and, together with the prison sentence, demands the payment of solidarity compensation together with Ricardo Manuel Faura, former administrator of the commercial company Comarques Central Televisió, of 135,812.50 euros to the Gandia City Council. Faura has also been sentenced to one year and nine months in prison as an embezzlement collaborator.
In addition, the Court imposes Torró an absolute disqualification of six years and six months. On the other hand, the court acquits the other five people accused in the proceedings of the criminal acts: José Vicente Codina; Josep Lluís Giménez; Anthony Abbot; Francisco Javier Reig; and Cristina Serrano.
For Torró, the Prosecutor’s Office claimed eight years in prison for the crime of embezzlement but finally it has remained at three years and six months when appreciating the mitigation of undue delays.
During the hearing, Torró stressed that no one ever objected to the management of the televisions: “Everything was applause because television was watched more than before and at less than half the cost than before,” he said.
However, as is clear from the sentence, Torró committed a crime of embezzlement. The events date back to July 2011, with the closure of the municipal station Gandia TV. Some time later, Iniciatives Públiques de Gandia (IPG) received a management commission from the Gandia City Council to carry out communication activities.
In this context, in 2012 IPG awarded two contracts for the provision of public television audiovisual communication services to two companies: Comparques Centras Televisió S.L. (CCTV) and Inversiones Espciales del Mediterráneo S.L. (TV 7). The amount received by both companies for audiovisual productions and broadcasts of interest to the city amounted, with its extensions, to more than seven million.
The court, after studying the facts, sees evidence that Torró, “interested” in removing CCTV from providing the audiovisual communication service contracted to get Faura, CCTV’s sole administrator, to agree to resolve the contractual relationship that linked this company with IPG, of which Torró was president, offered him half a million euros.
The Court considers that the “real reason” for the resolution was Torró’s interest in ending the relationship with CCTV and that, once the relationship with IPG ended, it would not include in the television activity that it could continue developing as a DTT licensee. in the region, programs with a political content that were not supervised by the Gandía City Council.
In order to get the CCTV Administrator, Ricardo Manuel Faura, to accept the resolution and said additional condition, Torró agreed to pay CCTV, in addition to the invoices that IPG owed him and which amounted to 196,875 euros, 303,125 euros more –up to a total of 500,000 euros–, “an amount that exceeded what CCTV could have legally claimed for the termination of the contract of February 6, 2010, which could not exceed 10% of the part of the contract that remained to be executed and that, in the most favorable interpretation for CCTV could not exceed 147,312.50 euros”, the court warns.
“The analysis of the evidence carried out and the regulations applicable to the termination of the contract of February 6, 2013 leads to the conclusion that said resolution meant for IPG the payment of an amount greater than what could reasonably have been or should have been set – -higher by an amount between 155,813 and 243,125 euros–; amount destined to resolve the relationship and to prevent or control the programming of political content on CCTV and, with this, to reward their silence or a political line similar to what from the City Hall will be marked “, apostille.
In conclusion, the court considers that in this case an “artifice” was used: pretending the concurrence of cause for a resolution by mutual agreement when what there was was an interested withdrawal by the contracting party -the municipal company, IPG–, an economic demand from the contractor to accept the resolution –payment of an amount much higher than that due for pending invoicing and withdrawal of the contracting party– and the imposition, within the negotiation, of an obligation for the contractor, “that does not served any public interest” –the commitment regarding the programming of political content–.
