The jury finds the former director of the Faffe guilty for "illicit expenses" in brothels with money to train the unemployed

Fernando Villén, former director of the Faffe, spent just over 32,000 euros on “parties, orgies, festivals” -in the words of the Anti-Corruption prosecutor Fernando Soto- in five hostess clubs. The money came from the public funds that he managed and that should be used to train the Andalusian unemployed and, although he assures that he returned it, there is no trace of the refund. What until now was a presumption is the truth for the nine members of the people's court who have tried Villén and his accomplice in recent weeks, the former financial director of the entity, Anna Valls. Both have been found guilty. Villén “guilty of a continued illicit disposition of public funds” that he spent in brothels, as well as guilty of “falsifying” the accounts, and Valls, of “collaboration” with his boss and of “simulating returns” of the money.

Two weeks and three days after the trial began, the jury has supported the investigations by the Civil Guard and has considered it proven that Villén squandered 32,566 euros in five brothels, three in Seville, one in Córdoba and another in Chiclana de la Frontera, in the province of Cádiz). It happened between 2004 and 2010, at the height of the Andalusian Training and Employment Fund Foundation, which was created for it by the Andalusian government chaired by Manuel Chaves and which he directed from its inception until its extinction in 2011.

Villén's prostitution route had stops at the Sala Delux in Córdoba (where he spent 1,390 euros), the Bahñia 2 brothel in Chiclana (1,931 euros spent), Top Show Girls in Seville (2,591 euros), La Casita, also in Seville (780 euros) and, above all, Don Angelo, the club preferred by the former director of the Faffe. In this club located in the Andalusian capital (today disappeared) he paid 25,277 euros with three of the six official cards of the foundation that he had at his disposal.

The “great orgy” was held there, as prosecutor Soto called it during the hearing, which involved a bill of 14,737 euros that was paid using Villén's official card fifteen times with charges ranging between 310 and 1,490 euros.. It happened between approximately eight in the afternoon of March 22, 2010 -the first charge is at 8:57 p.m.- and 2:43 a.m. the following day, and the representative of the Public Ministry himself has assumed that the former head of the foundation invited other people to that party, “high, medium or low office or businessmen”, whose names he has refused to reveal in all these years.

Fernando Villén and Anna Valls, former financial director of the Faffe, in the dock of the accused. EUROPE PRESS

The same day of the “great party” a government council of the Junta de Andalucía was held in which the then president, José Antonio Griñán, dismissed Antonio Fernández as employment counselor and, therefore, Villén's superior, since that the Faffe depended on that advice, although Villén has never given clues about the identity of his party companions and the Civil Guard has not found them either.

Next to Villén sat on the bench the former financial manager of the Faffe, who has also been found guilty of allowing and covering up her boss to spend public funds from the entity at will and in these hostess clubs, systematically falsifying the official accounting and pretending that the money was refunded when, in reality, it never returned to the Faffe box.

Both were accused of a continuous crime of embezzlement and another of falsehood, although for Villén the Prosecutor's Office requested six years in prison and for Valls only four.. After the verdict was made public this Friday, it will now be the president of the court, magistrate Mercedes Alaya, who has to write the sentence and establish the penalties that will be imposed on the two convicted.

The requests for forgiveness for what he himself has described as “undue expenses” have been of little use to Villén. The former director of the foundation to train the unemployed has tried to show his repentance, while insisting, since he was accused and until his last statement during the trial, that he returned “all” the money. By way of justification for the revelry in the brothels, he has been maintaining that they were part of the “commercial activity” that he had to carry out as the head of the Faffe.

On the verge of tears, he explained that he tried “not to collect” the expenses he made in the brothels in the Faffe accounting “out of shame” that “such an outrage” appeared.. He has tried to exonerate the other defendant, by pointing out that he never clarified that the expenses with the card corresponded to brothels, a matter that he also hid from his family.

Also, in his final statement he stressed that these clubs currently do not have the same “connotations” as in 2004 and stressed that they were “ten operational” over eight years.

During the trial, trips to Cuba and feasts at the April Fair in Seville that were paid for with money from the Faffe have also come to light.. The prosecution maintains that they are phantom payments and invoices designed to camouflage the expenses in the brothels. On the other hand, Villén has indicated that he and other directors of the Faffe were in Cuba on an institutional trip and that the food at the Fair was his idea to compensate the staff of the public foundation for a year in which there was a lot of work and they changed their headquarters. The food at the April Fair cost about 2,500 euros and was in the UGT-A booth at the fairgrounds, where the union also held parties paid for with money from the Junta de Andalucía, presumably.