The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of three and a half years in prison for José María Rodríguez, Jaume Matas’ right-hand man as general secretary of the Balearic PP in the years when Matas presided over the party on the islands. The Supreme Court rejects the appeal filed by Rodríguez, convicted in the first instance of a crime of prevarication in competition with the crime of fraud, embezzlement of public funds and falsehood, with the mitigating factor of undue delay.
Rodríguez was convicted in the so-called ‘Over Marketing case’, which investigated the diversion of money for the 2003 PP election campaign through contracts with a related marketing company. Both Jaume Matas and the owner of the company, Daniel Mercado, agreed to lesser sentences to avoid jail. Rodríguez did not do it and the ratification of the Supreme Court now leaves him at the gates of prison, once the Audiencia de Palma receives notification of the agreement.
The sentence of the ‘Over Marketing case’ is the last one that was pending from the time of Jaume Matas as president of the Balearic Government. Matas had already been sentenced for various cases, among which the ‘Nóos case’ stands out, which also landed Iñaki Urdangarin in jail. He was also convicted of irregularly paying a journalist to make presidential speeches for him.
José María Rodríguez was a prominent figure in the PP of the Islands for years, but his greatest political weight came with his appointment as secretary general of the formation and right-hand man of the then leader in the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas.
He was also president of the PP in Palma, the main Board of the party in the Islands, and collaborated directly with José Ramón Bauzá at the time when the current PP MEP presided over the Balearic Government. Bauzá and Rodríguez caused the then mayor of Palma, Mateo Isern, to be left off the PP lists in the 2015 elections.
José María Rodríguez became a delegate of the Balearic Government appointed by Mariano Rajoy, but had to resign when suspicions of possible corruption began to be revealed in his time as Minister of the Interior under the mandate of Jaume Matas.
