The Third Chamber of the Seville Court sentenced the former secretary general of the UGT-A, Francisco Fernández Sevilla, to three years in prison and a fine of 50 million euros, for a continuous crime of falsifying a commercial document in competition with an offense of subsidy fraud, all due to the “conscious and fraudulent” use of funds received from the Junta de Andalucía for a total amount of 40,620 256.43 euros for training for unemployed and employed people, for “purposes other than those for which they “should have been allocated, and those that the UGT-A provided to finance the union’s own activities, unrelated to the social purpose for which they received them. »
In the judgment rendered by the Communication Office of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), the court, which applies the mitigation of unjustified delays in said crimes, also imposes on Fernández Sevilla the loss of the possibility of obtaining subsidies or aid. . public and the right to benefit from tax or social security advantages or incentives for a period of four years and six months.
Likewise, the Third Chamber of the Court imposes these same penalties as perpetrators of the said offenses on three other former leaders of the union: the former deputy general secretary of the UGT-A administration Federico Fresneda; the former secretary of economic management of the union María Charpín and the former CEO of the Soralpe entity Enrique Goicoechea, while also condemning the head of the purchasing department of the UGT-A Dolores Sánchez, although in this case as an accomplice of the aforementioned offenses and imposes six months and two days in prison, a fine of 25 million euros and the loss of the possibility of obtaining subsidies or public aid and of the right to benefit tax or social benefits or incentives for a period of one and a half years.
In terms of civil liability, the court sentences the five former leaders of the union to jointly compensate the Junta de Andalucía in the amount of 40,620,256.43 euros – the four found guilty as perpetrators will have to face 99 percent of this sum, and the person convicted as an accomplice to 1 percent of it, and in the alternative with the persons convicted as perpetrators within the limit of 4,288,707.74 euros, which corresponds to the total amount allegedly defrauded, declaring the subsidiary civil liability of the UGT-A for the total amount.
The magistrates took into account the “seriousness” of the behavior committed, “the amount of the subsidies, the amount of what was defrauded, the multiplicity of requests and penal modalities, the damage caused to the workers for whose training the subsidies were used. been granted.” intended and in general for society, the social alarm produced by criminal acts such as those that are condemned today, and even more so when carried out by social agents who, precisely, receive subsidies for their so-called defense interests of society. workers and the unemployed.
Likewise, the Provincial Court acquits nine other defendants who were prosecuted as necessary collaborators of said crimes after having acted as suppliers to the union through the companies they represented.
Accusation of the prosecutor’s office
During the trial, the anti-corruption prosecution demanded seven years in prison and a 50 million euro fine for each of the four main defendants, as well as five years in prison and also a 50 million fine for the union’s purchasing manager. department, while for the suppliers he demanded the imposition of three years in prison and the payment of a fine of 3,600 euros.
The third section of the hearing considers that it is proven that the UGT-A union received subsidies from the General Training Directorate of the Employment Department of the Government of Andalusia to carry out training actions and that, between 2009 and 2013, “by decision of the Regional Executive Commission of the UGT-A”, whose highest representatives “were Manuel Pastrana, who served as secretary general until May 2013, with Francisco Fernández Sevilla, Deputy Secretary of the Organization and Secretary General from May 2013 to December 3 of the same year, and Federico F., who between 2009 and 2013 was head of the Deputy Secretary of Administration”, launched “a series of procedures which called upon different suppliers of the union and related entities” in order to obtain a financing channel to cover the union’s own structural expenses at the expense of public funds.
Mechanisms to “falsely” justify spending
To do this, they used different procedures, such as “obtaining discounts, commissions and rebates from suppliers that did not appear in the invoices presented as justification for expenses to the body granting the subsidy”, thus, in hiding their reality, it has been It is possible to allocate the entire amount to the subsidy without taking into account the agreed reduction, leaving to the CGU-A the difference between the declared cost and what was actually borne.
Supplier invoices and other accounting documents containing generic concepts were also prepared, either for unsold or unperformed goods or services, or for goods or services that were assigned a higher value than they actually had, or for union-specific goods or services. but unrelated to the subsidy to which they were allocated, to “falsely” justify the expenditure attributed to public funds.
Likewise, according to the magistrates, “other systems were put in place to attribute non-eligible expenses such as the salaries of employees and of Soralpe I+P Asociados SL to the training granted to the UGT-A, while they did not actually work there, as well as the structural and maintenance expenses of the union (telephone bills, electricity, cleaning, etc.) and, also, the payment of rent for classrooms and facilities owned by the UGT-A (…)”.
Suppliers paid
The magistrates analyze up to 14 grant files received by the UGT-A for training actions and specify the exact amount of expenses justified by the union for each ineligible file, bringing the said amount to a total of 40,620,256, 43 euros.
The third section of the hearing acquits all the defendants judged as suppliers to the union, considering that “the responsibility which could be attributed should be that linked and specific to the grant files which are the subject of this procedure, and not to their overall relationship with the union, which is not the subject of an accusation.
