The brother-in-law of the former mayor of the city Rita Barberá, José María Corbín (d), together with his daughter Rita Corbín Barberá (i), after signing in the Court of the City of Justice of Valencia in January of this year. Good Seasoning (Efe) (EFE)
On December 22, 2005, the humble neighborhood of Torrefiel in the city of Valencia was extremely happy because one of its faults, Conde de Montortal-Torrefiel, distributed almost the entire second prize of the Christmas Lottery.
Sold on ballots, 28,150 helped many families in this working-class area... and also the family of Rita Barberá, although it has always been linked to another failure.
This Wednesday, three nieces of the former mayor of the Valencian capital have declared voluntarily as being investigated in the
Azud case
, of alleged commission charges for irregular operations, and have justified part of the family fortune with that prize.
The Corbín-Barberá family belonged at that time to the Falla Exposición, which is next to the family home in a wealthier neighborhood.
One of the nieces that she declared before the judge was a major child fallera in 2001, when the commission entered the Special Section (the most important) and she was also a major fallera of the same in 2009.
His father, the also investigated José María Corbín, received 360,000 euros from the lottery of the Torrefiel failure, as they have reported before the judge, which means that he invested ninety euros to buy thirty tickets, which were three euros and that they put 2.40 at stake.
After a ruinous initial investment in Bankia shares in 2008 with the prize money, the lawyer recovered it and donated 50,000 euros to each of them to help them buy three homes, according to what the nieces of the former mayor of the PP of Valencia, between 1991 and 2015.
Sources present in the statement pointed out that the apparent objective is to separate their assets from their father's activity to ask that they be removed from the case, although each of them have 16% of the Corbin lawyers company and have worked in a sporadic in the firm.
As they explained, her father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009 and wanted to divide the company among his daughters, although the company has never distributed dividends.
The epicenter of Azud
The Azud case originated from an anonymous complaint against Corbin before the Tax Agency.
This body has verified in a report that the benefits of its law firm between 2005 and 2011 were "between 6 and 8 times more than the average for the sector", with "bulky results" all the years that do not correspond to the media employees.
When Barberá lost the command rod of the consistory, those benefits would have plummeted.
The investigation indicates that Corbín, married to Asunción, the sister and chief of staff of the popular Barberá, could have collected commissions from the companies of Jaime Febrer, the alleged ringleader of the plot, which obtained contracts from the City Council.
The third leg of the alleged bites would have been the vice mayor Alfonso Grau, also investigated and convicted of other crimes.
In addition to several heavyweights of the PP of that time, the socialist Rafa Rubio, then head of the opposition in the consistory, is also being investigated in this part of the plot.
In fact, the possibility that he financed campaigns of both the PP and the PSPV-PSOE in some municipalities is being studied.
The former socialist treasurer, Pepe Cataluña, is also under investigation.
Apart from the criminal consideration of the facts that the court investigates, as a result of that initial anonymous complaint, the Treasury considers that two crimes against the Public Treasury by Corbín for the fraud of the IRPF of the years 2007 and 2008 for a total amount of 281,000 euros.