The choose summons the mayor of Estepona to testify in regards to the alleged sexual harassment of an official | Spain | EUROtoday

The mayor of Estepona, José María García Urbano (PP), will testify in courtroom on November 18 concerning the grievance by a City Council official for alleged sexual harassment, as sources aware of the process have confirmed to EL PAÍS. García Urbano will go to the native Court of First Instance and Instruction quantity 5, after having requested it and as a defendant. This situation means that you can go to a lawyer, authorized sources level out. Once you present your testimony, the trainer will resolve if the case continues and below what circumstances.

The complainant, a Local Police agent, confirmed his grievance this Friday, in line with authorized sources. García Urbano maintains that he has been the sufferer of a false grievance. “The complainant has made falsehoods and contradictions during his statement,” say municipal sources. The councilor requested, as quickly because the grievance reached the media, that he be heard in courtroom, “voluntarily and as soon as possible” to spotlight “the absolute lack of foundation of the complaint,” they add. According to the Consistory of Estepona, the trainer agreed to take a press release with an order issued on October 31. “In no case is it produced as an investigation,” they emphasize.

The grievance, introduced on October 22, was admitted for processing every week later and it was agreed to take a press release from the complainant to resolve the subsequent steps to take based mostly on “the evidence of a crime that can be collected.” In his writing, the complainant claims that he had sexual relations on a number of events with the councilor and that he was pressured to take action due to the worry he had of dropping his job. The story of the judicial grievance particulars that since he started working as an intern on the Estepona City Council, in March 2022, he felt that “the defendant was looking at him” and had “special treatment” for him, “not in accordance with the normal relationship.” of labor {that a} mayor can have together with his officers.” According to his story, he appreciated that he had “a libidinous intention” and found shortly after that “he sought to satisfy his sexual desires by taking advantage of his status as mayor.”

The complainant stories that García Urbano met him at a lodge “in order to have sexual relations” on an unspecified date, which he locations between March 2022 and June 2023. According to his testimony, he agreed “for fear of losing his job and As a consequence, not being able to support his family.” He is keen to supply witnesses to what occurred in that lodge and “documentary evidence” of different properties the place different alleged sexual encounters befell. He additionally claims that he provided him “help of 2,000 euros per month” and that he discovered him a lease for him and his accomplice in a constructing referred to as Panorama.

The complainant maintains that, when he wished to cease having sexual relations, he obtained threats from the councilor telling him that “if he did not play his part, his professional career was over forever and that he was going to make his life impossible, since he has contacts so that he would not can work anywhere.”

García Urbano has been mayor of Estepona with the PP since 2011, the first electoral call after the Astapa case against corruption, which in July 2008 turned the local PSOE upside down and swept away the heirs of Gilismo. In the last elections, in 2023, he obtained 17 of the 25 councilors of the municipality and revalidated the title of the councilor with the most votes among municipalities with 50,000 inhabitants.

After the judicial complaint came to light, the Estepona City Council announced its intention to appear in the case to request that García-Urbano be heard, “voluntarily and as quickly as doable”, with the intention of “revealing absolutely the lack of basis for stated grievance.” The City Council frames this grievance as an “unacceptable and unfair campaign to damage the personal dignity and career of the mayor and the position he holds with a single and clearly spurious purpose.”

The Malaga Court made public this Friday the sentence within the main corruption case centered on the municipality, 18 years after the start of the police investigation. He Astapa case It has been settled with 15 minor sentences, together with the suspension and positive of former socialist mayor Antonio Barrientos.