The investigation initiated by a court in Trujillo (Cáceres) against the former mayor of that town between 2011 and 2019 and current ‘number 4’ of the PP, Alberto Casero, continues and is already in the hands of the Supreme Court.
According to the Superior Court of Justice of Extremadura (TSJEx), the judge has gathered all the documentary and testimonial evidence that she has considered necessary and has concluded the investigation opened in this first instance against the deputy who made a mistake in voting on the reform labor for an alleged crime of continued prevarication during his years at the head of the City Council.
This first part of the investigation has consisted of collecting the documentary and testimonial evidence to find out if Casero awarded contracts by hand, without files and bypassing the public contract law after up to twenty businessmen and self-employed workers claimed payment for services from the that there is no documentary record.
Now the Trujillo court has sent the proceedings and a reasoned statement to the Supreme Court because Casero is a deputy in Congress and, therefore, qualified. As explained by the TSJEx, the High Court will have to take a statement from the Secretary of Organization of the PP and decide on the imputation of him for prevarication.
According to several municipal sources, Casero left a debt of 7 million euros in a municipality of 8,821 inhabitants and several unpaid bills for the provision of services that are unknown and cannot be proven, without initiating the necessary administrative processes and with objections from the Intervention in some cases.
The current mayor, the socialist José Antonio Redondo, sent all the invoices to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Accounts in 2020 and last year the investigation began in the Trujillo court when the City Council was forced to pay the receipts, especially from smaller contracts that, since they did not exceed 15,000 euros plus VAT, could be awarded without competition. Among them, more than 56,628 euros for the organization of an awards gala in 2017 and 2018, around 15,000 for advice on tourism, 17,000 for other advice for the Cheese Fair, although it depends on an institution in which they are represented by the Junta de Extremadura and the Provincial Councils of Badajoz and Cáceres.
The most striking case is an invoice of 18,000 euros for the hiring of a psychologist to attend to women victims of gender violence, but in the City Council there is no such contract and there is no evidence that he ever met with these women.
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