The Faffe trial does not clarify whether there were senior charges in the "great spree" in brothels paid for with public money

After more than a week of trial, statements by defendants and witnesses, the unknown was floating in the air this Tuesday. Who or who went with the former general director of the Faffe (employment foundation of the Junta de Andalucía), Fernando Villén, to various brothels in Seville and Cádiz, where more than 32,000 euros of public money were spent? Were they high officials of the Andalusian government of the PSOE at the time? Entrepreneurs? Friends?

Villén, who was also Secretary of Employment for the Andalusian PSOE, kept his secret and, during the trial, did not want to reveal any names, thus protecting the identity of the men who accompanied him at the “parties, orgies, festivals, call them what you want.” »with prostitutes in «brothels and brothels», as emphasized by the Anti-Corruption prosecutor Fernando Soto in the first session of the trial, when presenting the case before the members of the jury.

But without a doubt the “great party or the great orgy” -in the words of the prosecutor- was the one held from March 22 to 23, 2010. Then, in a single night, the then head of the Faffe spent 14,737 euros, passing the Junta's credit card 15 times, in the hostess club called Don Ángelo, which was located in the Seville capital, near the field from Real Betis. At the trial that has been held at the Seville Court, with magistrate Mercedes Alaya presiding over the oral hearing, the owner of Don Ángelo was called as a witness, but he did not come to testify. He, perhaps, could have shed light on the people who accompanied Villén at dawn on the “great party”. But the witness eluded his appointment with justice.

That spree coincided precisely with a change in the government headed by José Antonio Griñán at the time and which included the dismissal of the Employment Minister Antonio Fernández, already peppered by the ERE scandal and now in prison serving a sentence for this corruption case.

The cloak of silence over Villén's companions at parties in brothels paid for with public money was brought up this Tuesday by the prosecutor, who censured that the former general director of the Faffe has “silent” during all these years “with whom he spent those more than 32,000 euros »of public money in hostess clubs. And he wondered what “high, medium or low position [of the Andalusian Administration] or businessmen” would have accompanied him on his visits to venues such as Don Ángelo, Top Show Girls, La Casita or Sala Delux.

Villén acknowledged in the trial that he spent more than 32,000 euros in brothels and that he used the card of the Junta de Andalucía to pay them, but that, later, he returned “all” the money. He did it this way so that his family would not notice these expenses and he framed his visits to the hostess clubs in the “commercial activity” that he had to carry out as the head of the Faffe..

This Tuesday, in his final argument, he said that hostess clubs probably do not currently have the same “connotations” as in 2004 and recalled that they were “ten operational” over eight years,

camouflage expenses

Despite the fact that Villén has apologized several times for what he called “improper expenses”, the prosecutor considered that there is “little” of regret.. According to the thesis of the Prosecutor's Office, Villén devised a mechanism, with the help of the other defendant -Ana Valls, then financial economic director of the Faffe- to “camouflage” the expenses in the brothels.

One of the invoices used to mask these expenses, amounting to 2,500 euros, corresponds to a meal at the UGT booth at the April Fair in Seville. While the defendants maintain that this meal was real, the casetero claims that he does not remember the invoice and that he was paid by the union, not Faffe. “What does the UGT have to do with this?” the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office asked rhetorically. In the final report, the prosecutor maintained his conviction requests. For Villén requests six years in prison and for Ana Valls, four years in prison.

Meanwhile, the defenses of the two defendants -Adolfo Cuéllar and Manuel Salinero- put down to “speculation” the accusations against their clients, and remarked that there was no “undermining” of public funds in this institution because, according to their version, all the money spent the brothels was returned. The Faffe was a foundation created to provide courses to the unemployed, but it became a focus of corruption.