Walter Finch
THE mayor of Estepona has refused to resign over claims that he sexually abused a male police officer and his wife over the space of 15 months.
Jose Maria Urbano, who is coming under increasing pressure since the allegations emerged earlier this month, was forced to make the statement at a plenary session of the Estepona town hall.
“Why, Mr Mayor, have you not considered temporarily stepping down from your position until the investigation is resolved, so that your situation doesn’t affect the management of the municipality and tarnish the image of the city?” PSOE councillor Emma Molina asked him.
“Be assured that I will only withdraw from political life when I consider that I have fulfilled my function, my duty and my obligation to the town, or when the people want me to,” Urbano, 61, responded.
“I will not step down for any other reason, and certainly not one of a political nature like the one you are referring to.”
The mayor also dodged a series of questions about his conduct during a grilling from opposition councillors.
Urbano’s refusal to resign comes after he attended court this week as a ‘suspect’ – and not voluntarily, as he had initially claimed.
The mayor exercised his right as a suspect not to answer questions from either the state prosecutor or the complainants lawyer.
As he left the courthouse about 30 minutes after arriving, he stopped only momentarily before stonewalling reporters waiting outside.
Molina shone a spotlight on his actions with a series of increasingly hard-hitting questions at the town hall meeting that were posted to the party’s social media accounts.
“Why, Mr Mayor, did you decide not to answer the questions of the prosecution and the lawyer for the prosecution?” she began.
“Are you willing to explain why you lied publicly when you said that you were going to testify voluntarily when in reality you did so as a suspect, given that it is the only option open to you to exercise your right not to testify?”
“Do you not believe that refusing to answer the prosecution obstructs the legal process and the search for the truth, when you should be the first party interested in clarifying the alleged facts you are accused of?”
She suggested that dodging questions from the prosecutor ‘could be a strategy to avoid giving direct explanations.’
The councillor implored the mayor to at least provide an explanation to the ‘concerned citizens of Estepona who are already discussing the issue in the streets.’
“If you don’t do so, you will be defrauding them of their trust.”
To all the questions, Urbano responded: “I understand that this is not the place to talk about this issue.”
The complainant’s lawyer, Antonio Granados Caballero, told the Olive Press that a number of corroborating videos have been submitted to the court and he remains ‘very optimistic’ that the judge will proceed with a prosecution of the mayor.
“The next step is for a witness to give a statement to the court,” he said.
“Then we wait to see if the judge asks for any more evidence and then files a prosecution order against the mayor.”
According to the victim complaint, events began at the Parador de Málaga Golf Club, when the victim caught the eye of Urbano.
Over the course of 15 months, the mayor is accused of pressuring the policeman and his wife into sexual relations, employing both threats and inducements.
“From the very beginning, he felt that the accused was looking at him and talking to him in a special way, not in accordance with the normal working relationship that a mayor can have with his officials,” the complaint reads.
It describes the ‘libidinous intent’ the mayor had towards the young policeman.
“The latter, unable to believe what he was hearing, and with deep fear (in case such rejection could affect his job (he has two young children)), had no other choice but to accede to Mr. García Urbano’s sexual demands.
“In all the episodes, the complainant had to accede to the sexual demands of the accused for fear of losing his job and, as a consequence, not being able to support his family,” the complaint states.
But threats and pressure were not Garcia Urbano’s only tool, according to the document.
He offered the victim and his wife, who live in Cordoba, a helping hand of €2,000 a month and the promise of an apartment in Estepona to ‘continue satisfying his sexual desires.’
After this arrangement had been set up, García Urbano allegedly contacted the complainant ‘insistently and daily,’ in order to continue the sexual tryst with both him and his wife.
The mayor went so far as to say that ‘if he didn’t play along, his professional career was over forever’ and that ‘he was going to make his life impossible, since he has contacts that prevent him from working anywhere,’ according to the complaint.
“Feeling humiliated, [Garcia Urbano] ordered him to strip naked to have sex with him. [The victim] refused to do so, but Mr. García Urbano repeated to him that, if he didn’t, he would lose his job,” it continues.
It also alleged that García Urbano gave the victim ‘some blue pills’ in order to be able to fulfil his orders.
The employee, who is currently in Cordoba and on ‘mental health leave’, claims he faced the ‘sexual harassment’ between March 2022 and June 2023.
He had only recently taken a job with the town’s local police force, according to reports.
The allegations come as a bombshell for the high-flying former lawyer and notary, who has been tipped by many for the top job at the Junta.
The mayor – who gained a record 69.4% of votes in the 2019 elections – has denied the claims.
“It is an inexcusable and unjust campaign to damage my personal dignity and my trajectory with a clear and spurious goal,” he insisted in a statement earlier this month.
