Six former mayors of the Community of Madrid have been convicted of corruption plot "Púnica"
The National High Court has accused businessman David Marjaliza, the leaders of Cofely and the former mayors of several Madrid municipalities, most of them PP, of "corrupt practices." In total, the AN has convicted 29 people.
The National High Court has sentenced 29 people, six of them former mayorsof the Community of Madrid, to illegally awardmillion-dollar contracts to Cofely for energy efficiency services between 2012 and 2014, and for corruptioninthe Punica network in exchange for commissions and donors.
In a 611-page judgement, the High Court sentenced former Mayor of Móstoles Daniel Ortiz Espejo, Agustín Juárez Collado de Villalba, Carlos Alberto Estrada de Moraleja de Enmedio (all of them from the PP), Antonio Sánchez Fernández de Serranillos del Valle (from an independent party) and the socialist José María Fraile (former ruler of Parla) to prison.
He has also sentenced the brothers Alejandro and Mario Utrilla, former Environment Councillor of Móstoles and former PP Mayor of La Nueva Sevilla, respectively, to imprisonment.
The AN has imposed special disqualification for the former mayor of the PP of Torrejón de Velasco, Gonzalo Cubas, and acquitted José García Lobato de Almendralejo (Badajoz) and José Carlos Boza de Valdemoro .
The maximum penalty is for Marjaliza.
The main conviction has been handed down by David Marjaliza, a former member of Francisco Granados and leader of the network, who has been sentenced to eight years and two months in prison by the National High Court. Granados has not been tried in this piece.
The ruling issued today corresponds to part 6 of the Punica case. The National High Court finds it proven that they developed "corrupt practices" in awarding public energy efficiency contracts to Cofely. 37 natural and legal persons have been tried, 29 of whom have been found guilty by the Court.
In addition to the former mayors, the National High Court has sentenced Cofely's directors, Roger Maurice Cofely, then CEO of Didier, Constantino Alvarez, and Pedro García Pérez, commercial director of Cofely, to six years' imprisonment, and sentenced Cofely to a fine of more than 3.5 million euros.
The court says that between March 2012 and October 2014, the directors of Cofely and Marjaliza acted as a criminal organization, offering or accepting corruption agreements to award energy efficiency contracts in municipalities, with technicians who were in charge or responsible.
SOME PALLIATIVES
The court has applied the mitigating of the late confession to a dozen defendants, including Marjaliza and Cofely's superiors.
They have also applied the mitigating of undue delays, since the case started on June 18, 2014 and has been resolved 11 years later, so it has exceeded a reasonable response time.
Some of the defendants have also been compensated for the damage.
Until now, the main defendant in the Punica case, Francisco Granados, had only been tried on a "collateral issue" in the case under investigation for a whistle-blower by a Civil Guard.
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