The AN begins on Thursday the trial of former PP charges in León for the reputation work of 'Púnica'

The Prosecutor's Office asks for between 8 and 5 and a half years in prison, also for contracts of a ski resort

MADRID, 6 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The National Court (AN) starts on Thursday the trial of the piece of the 'Púnica case' related to León and for which the supposed 'achiever' of the plot, businessman Alejandro de Pedro, sits on the defendant's bench, as well as two former Popular Party officials in that province, the former president of the Diputación Martín Marcos Martínez and the former chief of staff Pedro Vicente Sánchez.

They face sentences of between 8 and 5 and a half years in prison for the online reputation work and advice of Martín Marcos, and for the award of contracts for the San Isidro ski resort.

For these facts, the former inspector of the Diputación Manuel Jesús López Sánchez is also accused; the former mayor of Cartagena José Antonio Alonso Conesa and an employee of De Pedro, Guadalupe Caballero, in addition to the companies that developed the work, Eico Online and Madiva Editorial, which would have received some 90,000 euros of public funds irregularly.

In its indictment, collected by Europa Press, the Prosecutor's Office claims for Martín Marcos, former president of the Diputación and current mayor of the municipality of Cuadros as an independent, the highest sentence, 8 years in prison, for the crimes of embezzlement contestants with falsehood, fraud and influence peddling.

On the other hand, for Manuel Jesús López and Pedro Vicente Sánchez, who was coordinator of the press office of the Diputación and is now mayor of Puebla de Lillo with an independent party, he requests 7 years, one less than Martín Marcos, since he is not accused of influence peddling.

The Public Ministry asks for De Pedro and Alonso Conesa 5 and a half years in prison for misappropriation of public funds in competition with falsehood and fraud, while for Guadalupe Caballero it leaves his request at 3 years and five months in prison for embezzlement of public funds in false contest.

As for De Pedro's companies, the Prosecutor's Office is interested in a fine of double the benefit obtained. In addition, it requests that among the six defendants they compensate the Provincial Council with 171,000 euros.

De Pedro and Alonso Conesa had worked since 2010 for different public administrations and together controlled a group of companies with which they applied for public contracts, "many of them with simulated objects", according to the account of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

"The objective of all this was to produce personal image campaigns that would build a positive reputation on the Internet, linked to the politician's names, that would neutralize negative news or improve his public profile," he says in the letter.

To achieve this goal, they used dozens of digital newspapers - many of them "zombies", without updating - that acted as "replication engines", "without any journalistic interest", of positive news.

In 2012, De Pedro and Alonso Conesa captured the then president of the Provincial Council, Isabel Carrasco, as a client, with whom they agreed to work to "clean and care" for their reputation on social networks, which lasted and in which the accused later participated. .

After the death of Carrasco, who was assassinated in 2014, the reputation services continued with Martín Marcos as acting president of the Diputación and would have been paid in a "sneaky" manner through the simulation of institutional advertising hiring.

Martín Marcos was "interested in making himself known to the citizens of León, building a positive identity on social networks and receiving advice for his political promotion", which "was taken advantage of" by De Pedro and Alonso Conesa to specify with him a new plan.

The agreement, according to the Prosecutor's Office, included that De Pedro and Alonso Conesa use their political influence to support the aspirations of Martín Marcos to lead the PP of León and his candidacy for the Presidency of the Provincial Council in the following elections.

As advisory tasks were agreed, the writing points out, the writing of his speeches, the monitoring of his interventions in the party and the preparation of his political agenda with regional authorities.

And as for the award of contracts for the operation of the ski resort, the Prosecutor's Office maintains that the former president of the Provincial Council and the comptroller Manuel Jesús López had "direct interests" in the area to benefit De Pedro's companies.

Likewise, it considers that Martín Marcos exerted "pressure" on public employees of the Diputación to find a way to be able to carry out its purposes in those facilities.