After seven years of investigation, the head of Court number 3 of Valencia, Pepa Tarodo, has agreed to the partial dismissal of one of the seven cases derived from the macro-case known as the Azud case, which investigated an alleged scheme of commission and bribery linked to the awarding of contracts and campaign financing. The investigations looked into PSPV-PSOE officials, such as its former finance treasurer José Cataluña, and businessmen like the Castellon native Enrique Gimeno. The judge has finally decided to dismiss the charges against Cataluña and Gimeno after the Prosecutor’s Office issued a report concluding that their alleged crimes – including irregular campaign financing – were time-barred, according to the ruling.
The partial dismissal due to prescription agreed by Tarodo comes despite the fact that, during the investigation phase in 2022, the former PSPV-PSOE manager Francisco Martínez testified before the judge that the construction company Gigante de Edificaciones y Obras paid expenses to the socialists in 2007 and pointed to Cataluña as the author of an invoice diversion that the company ultimately ended up paying.
The Civil Guard’s UCO, for its part, also pointed to Enrique Gimeno for taking charge, through his company Facsa, of paying 70,000 euros in electoral campaign expenses in 2008. The businessman is a confessed author of the PP’s irregular financing campaign.
The magistrate has also dismissed the charges against about ten investigated individuals in the case, including the former president of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) between 2004 and 2011 – which depends on the Ministry for Ecological Transition – Juan José Moragues; and the former CEO of Aguas del Júcar José Antonio Marugán. The judge, after adopting a report from the Prosecutor’s Office, decrees the provisional dismissal because – according to the Public Ministry – “the participation of the investigated in the facts has not been proven.”
The Azud case is part of a macro-case that investigated the awarding of large urban development projects and public contracts between 1999 and 2013 granted by the PP and PSOE. The investigations tracked the kickbacks allegedly received by the former deputy mayor of the Valencia City Council Alfonso Grau, from the PP, who, according to the UCO, received two million euros in commissions. It also investigated the brother-in-law of the former mayor (now deceased) Rita Barberá, the lawyer José María Corbín. The judge has investigated the alleged commission of the crimes of bribery, influence peddling, malfeasance, fraud in contracting, and document falsification, for which about fifty businessmen, regional PP leaders, and PSPV-PSOE officials have been charged.
On July 30, the Provincial Court of Valencia sentenced Grau to four and a half years in prison and nine years of disqualification for the so-called Taula case, which tracked a political corruption and irregular financing scheme of the PP.