ESTEPONA’S under-fire mayor could be heading behind bars after prosecutors requested a five-and-a-half year jail term over allegations he misappropriated public money.
Jose Garcia Urbano, a big player in the conservative Partido Popular (PP), has overseen matters in the booming Costa del Sol municipality since 2011 but has come under intense scrutiny over claims he slipped thousands of euros of public cash to a former lover.
Marbella’s Public Prosecutor Office say Urbano should be jailed and banned from public office for ten years over accusations he handed a juicy no-work contract at the town hall to an ‘intimate female friend’ in 2023.
The indictment, signed by lead prosecutor Alejandra Gamez, states that the mayor issued a decree on February 13 that year to hire a woman, known only as Cristina P, as a temporary employee.
According to police, she was assigned to the town hall’s External Control Department to ‘gather information on the state of street cleaning, lighting, landscaping and street furniture’ around the town, which is home to over 4,500 British expats.
But during her employment she lived in Cordoba, making it ‘difficult’ for her to carry out the tasks in the flesh.
She remained employed until March 31 and received total remuneration of €5,376 for just 46 days ‘work’.
Aides close to the mayor have slammed the prosecution’s request as ‘legal nonsense based on a false statement’ by Cristina P, who they say underwent surgery during the period of the employment contract but did not request sick leave.
‘This is an unacceptable and unfair political and media campaign with the sole objective […] of damaging the dignity and political careers of the mayor of Estepona, in an attempt to remove him from the town hall and his commitment to this city,’ municipal sources told El Pais.
Prosecutors are also requesting three-and-a-half years in prison for Cristina P as an alleged accessory to the crime of embezzlement.
According to WhatsApp conversations seen by police, Garcia Urbano and the woman had an ‘intimate friendship’, with the mayor even sending her €21,000 of his own money between 2022 and 2023 so she could pay rent and expenses.
The revelations have prompted calls for Urbano to resign, with PSOE councillor Emma Molina telling the Olive Press last year: “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.”
Last January, a judge dismissed a complaint of sexual harassment by a local policeman against.
The complainant had alleged that Garcia Urbano coerced him into sexual relations over the course of 18 months with a mixture of threats and bribes.
The local policeman in the case is the ex-husband of Cristina P, the woman involved in the alleged case of embezzlement.
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