Walter Finch
THE chickens may be coming home to roost for Estepona’s high-flying mayor after a second investigation was opened into his conduct in office.
Partido Popular heavyweight Jose Garcia Urbano, 61, is already waiting to find out if he will be charged over allegations of sexual abuse and coercion against a local policeman and his wife.
The officer filed a formal complaint last month accusing the mayor of a 15-month campaign of threats and sexual terror, forcing him to go on mental health leave in July 2023.
Now, the Olive Press can reveal that Urbano, who has spent 13 years at the helm of one of Spain’s fastest-growing provinces, is also under investigation for misuse of public funds.
Public records show that in February 2023 Urbano hired the policeman’s wife, identified as CPB, as a controller at the town hall on a temporary contract worth €3,600 a month – despite the fact that she had no qualifications for the role.
An Estepona judge is now examining whether this constitutes the crime of misappropriation of public money.
Initially testifying as a witness against Urbano, she had her status switched to victim after she told the court of her alleged ordeal at being drawn into the mayor’s web of so-called ‘perversions’.
According to the complainants’ lawyer, Antonio Caballero Granados, CPB took home her generous salary – nearly double the average in the province – ‘without ever doing a day’s work or even setting foot in the town hall.’
The do-nothing job was part of a series of inappropriate offers towards the policeman and his wife that also included allegedly transferring them €2,000 a month for half a year in order to rent an apartment in Estepona.
The couple, who come from Cordoba, allege in their testimony that they had little choice but to accept the mayor’s blandishments.
They claim that Urbano, who many had tipped to become mayor of Malaga or even the next president of the Junta, threatened to use his considerable influence to crush their careers if they did not go along with ‘satisfying his sexual desires.’
Estepona and the Costa del Sol is now waiting with bated breath to learn whether the investigating judge will decide to move forward with charging the mayor for sexual abuse and abuse of power.
When the allegations broke last month, they hit the mayor hard.
So much so that his team initially threatened to sue media outlets that intended to report on them and even had one story pulled after it was already published.
But the sordid accusations came as less of a surprise to those who knew of Urbano’s ownership of an infamous ‘swinger’s castle’ in the Malaga town of Monda, which attracted guests from all over Europe in its heyday.
Famed for its Moorish roots, it tellingly became a wife-swapping club after being purchased by Urbano alongside other investors, replete with sex dungeons and ‘glory holes’.
The mayor – who gained a record 69.4% of votes in the 2019 elections – has denied the allegations, lambasting them as an ‘an inexcusable and unjust campaign to damage my personal dignity and my trajectory with a clear and spurious goal.’
Nor has his investigation for misusing public funds raised too many eyebrows in Andalucia.
During his lengthy stint as mayor, Urbano has never published his income records nor his portfolio of property to Andalucia’s official transparency portal – a clear violation of Spanish law.
Which is not that surprising given his connections to the corrupt regime of former Marbella mayor Jesus Gil and the shady property deals that brought his cabal down.
Despite these associations, his history of further questionable property deals as mayor and his flagrant disregard for Spanish law, Urbano has never faced investigation – until now.
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