The defense lawyers of the six male children of José María Ruiz-Mateos have held the deceased businessman responsible for the alleged scam of the Nueva Rumasa promissory notes, whose trial began this Monday at the National Court.
The procedure refers to the promissory notes issued between 2009 and 2011, which allowed Nueva Rumasa to raise more than 337 million euros from 4,110 individuals. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office considers that the Ruiz-Mateos not only hid the delicate financial situation of the group, but also devised a pyramid scheme in which they limited themselves to paying the interest with the new contributions while they used the money for private purposes.
In addition to the businessman’s six children, nine other people sit in the dock, including company workers and collaborators, who are accused of fraud, money laundering and confiscation of assets. The Prosecutor’s Office is asking for between three and 16 years in prison, as well as a bail of about 500 million euros. The injured parties claim, through private prosecution, 171 million euros.
The sons’ lawyers – Álvaro, Zoilo, José María, Pablo, Francisco Javier and Alfonso Ruiz-Mateos – have also demanded the annulment of a good part of the trial evidence, considering that it was provided by the company’s former lawyer. Joaquín Yvancos, who is now part of the prosecution.
The defense argument is that Yvancos, head of the family’s legal services between 2002 and 2010, gave Anti-Corruption secret information about the activities of Nueva Rumasa, which implies breaking professional secrecy and loyalty.
Of the funds raised by the company founded by Ruiz-Mateos after the expropriation of Rumasa, some 289 million euros were never returned. The prosecutors’ thesis is that the money was redirected to a box of the now defunct Banco Etcheverría in Madrid that the accused could access.
The president of the court, Fernando Andreu, has informed the lawyers that he will rule on the nullity of the evidence at the time of sentencing, according to Efe. Anticorruption prosecutor Juan Pavia has argued that “there is no nullity to appreciate” because Yvancos’ contribution “is absolutely inane” and “does not contribute anything to the cause that was not known.”
The trial began this Monday at the headquarters of the National Court of San Fernando de Henares, in Madrid, and will continue this week with three more hearings until Thursday. In April 2017, the judge of the National Court José de la Mata decided to open an oral trial and impose a bail of 496 million on the six children of the businessman, who died in 2005.
Among the accused are also family members Zoilo Pazos Jiménez and Alfonso Barón Rivero, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office requests 15 years in prison. The workers and collaborators of Nueva Rumasa Manuel Sánchez Marín and José Ramón Romero, Rufino Romero de la Rosa and Ricardo Álvarez Castaño are also accused of fraud or money laundering.
Anti-corruption also accuses Ángel de Cabo Sanz, Fernando Juan Lavernia and Iván Manuel Losada of a crime of extortion of assets, for allegedly having agreed with Ruiz-Mateos’ children to purchase Nueva Rumasa companies after the issuance of promissory notes, “with “in order to control bankruptcy proceedings and safeguard the family’s personal assets as much as possible.”
There are another 58 legal entities prosecuted as subsidiary civil liabilities and nine natural persons as lucrative participants, among them the lawyer Yvancos.
