Prosecutors seek an eight-year prison sentence for former Orihuela Mayor Mónica Lorente

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is requesting eight years in prison for former Orihuela Mayor Mónica Lorente, former councillors Antonio Lidón and Antonio Rodríguez Murcia, and three leaders of the defunct Orihuela Football Club: José Rodríguez Murcia, José Agustín Rodríguez Gascón, and Domingo Alcocer, for crimes related to the allegedly irregular awarding of four municipal subsidies totalling 824,000 euros between 2007 and 2009. The trial was supposed to begin last Thursday, February 5th, at the Seventh Section of the Provincial Court, but it has been postponed and rescheduled for early 2027.

According to the case file, the Prosecutor’s Office allowed the Orihuela City Council to enter as an aggrieved party and seek compensation for the 824,000 euros that were plundered. This presence would aid in the recovery of allegedly embezzled public funds for municipal coffers, but no legal documentation exists.

An accusation

According to sources at the Valencian Community High Court, the prosecution’s case revolves around a continuing offence of administrative malfeasance in conjunction with fraud, which is punishable by two years in prison, and a continuing offence of embezzlement of public funds in conjunction with grant fraud, which is punishable by an additional six years. Antonio Rodríguez Murcia and Antonio Lidón are facing a 20-month fine for alleged undeclared conflicts of interest related to grant approval for an entity in which they had direct financial interests.

First Aid

The case describes an alleged infringement of public subsidy restrictions. In November 2007, the club received a grant of 100,000 euros for “carrying out sports activities,” which was transferred to San José Inversiones y Proyectos Urbanísticos, chaired by Orihuela businessman José Rodríguez Murcia and his son José Agustín Rodríguez Gascón.

Second grant

The second grant, of 84,000 euros, granted on December 28th, 2007 for the same reason, was reimbursed in cash on the same day of receipt, March 12, 2008, for payroll payments at the club, including 5,000 euros for Antonio Lidón Ferrández, son of the then-Councilor for Sports.

The third aid, of 80,000 euros awarded in May 2008 ostensibly for “advertising contracts,” lacked a formal contract and was paid in full on the day of receipt – July 11th, 2008 – with cheques and cash to meet payroll and club bills.

The sponsorship

The fourth and largest subsidy, of 560,000 euros (out of the 700,000 initially agreed), was granted in July 2008 through an agreement for the “advertising exploitation of the Miguel Hernández Centenary brand”, but the money was used entirely to reduce the negative balance of a credit policy of the club, without any documentation to prove the advertising dissemination committed beyond the symbolic display of a logo created by the City Council for the centenary on the pla

Among the named recipients are 22,411.28 euros given to Samiguil, a company affiliated with Domingo Alcocer, a businessman and developer who specialises in public works for several governments, and 21,000 euros in cheques payable to the son of former councillor Lidón.

Strategic Plan

The judicial summary highlights the Orihuela City Council’s lack of a strategic subsidy strategy when authorising those subsidies, the nominative concession without a public call or objective explanation for the exceptional treatment, and the absence of any following oversight mechanisms.

Neither the managing body, the Department of Sports, nor the Municipal Intervention then directed by Javier Cifuentes – now a part-time advisor to the mayor of Orihuela, Pepe Vegara – who is also already accused and for whom the Prosecutor is seeking eight years in prison – requested supporting documentation before payment, nor did they conduct any subsequent material or financial checks.

Without inhibiting

Antonio Rodríguez Murcia, then deputy mayor and member of the club’s board of directors until July 2008, participated in the approval of subsidies without recusing himself, despite being the club president’s brother and guarantee of the loan. Meanwhile, the Orihuela CF directors never supplied the City Council with any justification regarding how the funds were spent. In fact, the documentation given as alleged rationale was prepared after the judicial investigation commenced in 2015.

The bankruptcy of San José

The club was legally dissolved in July 2017, and it lost its legal standing. The company San José Inversiones is described as subsidiarily accountable for the €100,000 transfer made straight to its account in December 2007. This transfer was undertaken by the company’s principal just four months before filing for voluntary bankruptcy in March 2008, with €144 million as one of the province of Alicante’s greatest real estate liabilities during the crisis. This bankruptcy devastated dozens of families in Molins’ Orihuela district, who had put all of their funds into the developer.

The fourth trial

When the trial begins, the former mayor of Orihuela, from the People’s Party, will be sitting in the dock for the fourth time. Lorente was previously convicted of misconduct for granting a contract to a business for the construction of a park in the village of Escorratel 18 days after the work was completed.

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In the Brugal case, she was convicted of rigging the Orihuela rubbish collection service contract in favour of businessman Ángel Fenoll. She was also accused in the branch that investigated the alleged rigging of the regional garbage management contract, but was acquitted along with the rest of those involved in a ruling that is being appealed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.