Walter Finch
THE mayor of Estepona is facing the possibility of up to three years in jail after a judge ordered a jury trial to answer charges he misappropriated public money.
PP heavyweight Jose García Urbano, who has been overseeing the booming Costa del Sol municipality since 2011, is accused of handing a plump, no-work contract at the town hall to a former ‘intimate female friend’ in 2023.
Known by the initials CPB, she was earning €3,642 a month to supposedly ‘check lampposts and flowerpots’ around the town, according to Estepona’s Court Number 5.
The once-quiet fishing village has undergone a total transformation during Urbano’s tenure, as hordes of people have flocked in from abroad to purchase property and second homes.
But it will now witness the unusual sight of its courts putting its own mayor on trial, according to legal documents acquired by the Olive Press.
The document states that Urbano ‘took advantage of his position as mayor of the Estepona town hall to help out an intimate friend financially.’
The case has stemmed from a series of allegations made by CPB and her Policia Local ex-husband, in which they accused Urbano of coercing them into a sordid menage a trois.
They alleged that Urbano used a combination of threats and blandishments – including happily handing CPB a role she was unqualified for in order to keep both her and her husband sweet.
The judge eventually threw that particular case out on the grounds that the unusual relationship had been ‘consensual’.
But he was satisfied that there was one to be answered over how CPB came to take home over €5,376 of taxpayer’s money for 48 day’s work between February 13 and March 31, 2023.
CPB herself testified before the court in earlier hearings that she ‘never once set foot in the town hall’ during this period.
Estepona PSOE Councillor Emma Molina called for Urbano’s immediate resignation over the ‘very serious’ charges.
“Handing out public money to a person he had an intimate relationship with – and who she herself claims she never went to work – is enough to make him leave now,” she told the Olive Press.
“Of course [PP party leader Alberto] Feijoo is very quiet, as is [PP President of the Junta] Juanma Moreno – I wonder why that is? They should comment on these facts.”
She added that the PSOE had expelled its own members over serious allegations – and at a much earlier junction.
The mayor has consistently maintained that the allegations against him are ‘baseless’ and are ‘spuriously motivated to damage my personal image and political career.’
