Supreme Court Judge Sends Cerdán to Prison for Bribery, Criminal Organization, and Influence Peddling.

The Supreme Court judge Leopoldo Puente has sent Santos Cerdán into preventive detention for crimes of bribery, organized crime, and influence peddling. The judge made this decision, requested by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and popular accusations, after the former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE only wanted to answer his lawyer’s questions during his first statement as an investigated individual, in which he denied participating in the alleged rigging of public works in exchange for commissions. According to the judge, after Monday’s hearing, there remain “significant indications” of Cerdán’s involvement in the alleged corrupt scheme that had its epicenter in the Ministry of Transport during José Luis Ábalos’s tenure. The instructor estimates that the “loot” obtained by Cerdán could be over five million euros, assuming that “the financial reward for the improper awarding of the works could hypothetically be one percent of the value of the awards.” This “reinforces” the idea, the instructor points out, that “more individuals, whether natural or legal persons,” besides Cerdán, Ábalos, and Koldo García, could have profited from the awards.

Cerdán is the first of those investigated for the alleged rigging of works in exchange for kickbacks for whom the Supreme Court has ordered preventive detention. Judge Leopoldo Puente rejected last week to imprison Ábalos and García, considering that the requirements for such a measure (risk of flight, destruction of evidence, or reoffending) were not met. However, in Cerdán’s case, the instructor believes that, although there is no danger of him fleeing or reoffending, there is “a certain risk” that, if he remained free, the former socialist leader would hide, destroy, or alter relevant evidence.

The instructor rejected ten days ago the request to search the home or office at the PSOE headquarters that Cerdán occupied as Secretary of Organization, considering that this “restrictive of rights” measure was not “useful” at that moment. The search had been requested by the PP, which acts as a popular accusation, claiming there was a risk of evidence destruction, but Puente maintained that this danger “would not be averted” with a search, as this measure could have been highly “predictable” for Cerdán at that time. In the detention order, the judge argues that the risk of destruction of evidence “must be averted” with preventive detention because there is no other measure “less burdensome for his personal freedom that could be equally effective.”

The decision to imprison Cerdán also relates to the role of “certain preeminence” within the scheme that the judge attributes to him. Investigators have not yet gathered data proving that Cerdán received kickbacks from construction companies, but the instructor warns that “it seems reasonable to consider” that if, based on the recordings found at Koldo García’s home, it is confirmed that he and Ábalos received 550,000 euros and that they are owed another 450,000, Cerdán must also have obtained some form of financial benefit “for himself and/or for a third party.” Thus, the magistrate suggests that both the “vertical relationship” the last Secretary of Organization had with the former minister and his former advisor and that it “seems unlikely” that Cerdán acted solely for the benefit of Ábalos and García in a “completely disinterested” manner.

To estimate the “reward” Cerdán could have taken alone or with “others” to be over five million, the judge recalls that the total of works awarded to Acciona Construction through agencies dependent on Transport total “very close” to 550 million euros (specifically, 537,271,005 euros, barring error or omission, according to the instructor). This “reinforces” the thesis, the magistrate points out, that “more individuals, whether natural or legal persons” have received kickbacks. And only Cerdán, who according to evidence was “responsible for carrying out the necessary dealings with the payers,” is the one who “would be in the best position to know” who else was paid “if that indeed occurred and., correspondingly, to hide, alter, or make disappear any evidence that may exist regarding this, as well as how the illicit payments were structured.

The judge refers in his order to the “explicit conversations” between Cerdán, Ábalos, and García heard in the recordings found by the UCO at the home of the former advisor to the minister. From them, Puente states, “sufficient elements” arise not only to consider that there are indications of Cerdán’s involvement in the facts being investigated, “but also his particular position within them.” The instructor emphasizes that in those recordings, García demands from Cerdán the amounts that he supposedly owes him and Ábalos as a result of the alleged illicit awards of public works. These works also present “an eloquent common denominator: all of them were awarded to Acciona Construction working in a consortium with smaller companies, without any of the cases presenting the best economic offer, invariably favored in the bidding by subjective evaluation criteria,” warns the instructor.

The former socialist leader has denied during his statement having received any form of compensation in exchange for favoring the rigging of public works and has linked the accusations against him to political persecution for negotiating with PNV and Bildu the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. This version, according to consulted sources, has been decisive for the head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Alejandro Luzón, to request Cerdán’s admission to preventive detention without bail, a request that has been endorsed by the popular accusations, unified under the direction of the PP.

The judge highlights the fact that Cerdán did not even directly question in the Supreme Court “the unequivocal content” of the recordings, but alleged that he does not remember having such conversations or that they were incomplete or out of context. However, the judge states, beyond the content of the recordings, the circumstances under which they were found are also important: in devices discovered by the UCO during the search at the home of Ábalos’s former advisor, making it “hardly conceivable” that they did not actually occur and were “the result of an artificial manipulation” by García.

Moreover, the judge warns that the recordings are not the only indications against Cerdán that the investigators have, as “his connection” with Servinabar 2000 SL is “unequivocal,” “a company that was awarded certain public works, precisely operating in a consortium, despite its minimal size and lack of experience in the construction business, with Acciona.” Among the indications, the instructor recalls that, according to the UCO, Cerdán asked Koldo García in July 2018 under what concept Servinabar should pay 4,500 euros, to which the latter replied to do it as a “donation.” A few days later, Cerdán sent García an email with an image of a transfer for that amount made by the construction company to Fiadelso, a foundation linked to Ábalos and his family.

“Such dealings would evidence […] that Mr. Santos Cerdán had, at least until that date, a certain capacity for administration or very fluid communication with the mentioned Servinabar,” says the judge, who also considers that these payments from the company to the foundation “do not seem to have been sporadic but periodic,” as Koldo García “apologized for the delay in payment” to Tatiana Ábalos, daughter of the then minister, assuring her that that delay would not happen again.

The magistrate places Cerdán as the person “responsible for collecting the illicit payments from the companies favored by the award.” Once these amounts were obtained from the companies, he distributed them, making them reach, “at least,” to Ábalos and Koldo García, “who, when needed, demanded payments from him and not from them.”

“This functional position determines that the latter, Mr. Ábalos and Mr. García, could be unaware of who precisely the individuals were that, for the benefit of the company favored by the award —Acciona Construction acting in a consortium— made/was making the payments, the total amount of those payments, and the mechanism by which they were specified, limiting themselves to receiving the agreed amounts when Mr. Cerdán distributed the benefits,” adds the instructor, who concludes: “It is not so much the mentioned vertical relationship, nor the embryonic nature of the investigation regarding Mr. Santos Cerdán, that determines the existence of a significantly higher risk in his case of hiding, altering, or destroying relevant evidence for the prosecution of the facts that are the subject of the present special process, but rather his functional position within the organization.”

The former socialist leader did not want to answer the judge’s questions or any of the accusations and limited himself to responding to the interrogation prepared with his lawyer, Benet Salellas. Sources from the case indicate that the former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE has maintained his innocence and has assured that he has never received commissions for himself nor to fund the PSOE. The former socialist leader has claimed his work in the party to achieve sufficient majorities to form “democratic coalition governments,” as the sources detail; which, he asserts, has motivated the accusations against him.

Cerdán has denied the conclusions reached by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard in the report submitted to the judge on June 5, which has caused a political upheaval that has shaken Pedro Sánchez’s government. The former Secretary of Organization of the PSOE has rejected the role of supposed “manager” of kickbacks attributed to him by agents, who believe he distributed with Ábalos and his former advisor, Koldo García, the commissions received from companies.