Overview
- A criminal court in León sentenced activists Juan Martínez Grasa and Alberto Royuela Fernández to six months in prison for defaming PSOE deputy Javier Alfonso Cendón and ordered €2,000 in compensation.
- The judgment says they knowingly posted videos claiming he joined luxury dinners with businessmen surrounded by prostitutes and cocaine to damage him during Spain’s 2023 election campaign.
- The court details their unsupported claims that he held money in tax havens, including nine €50,000 deposits at AIB Bank in Jersey, and rejects them as false.
- Cendón and party sources welcomed the ruling and said the three-year smear campaign scarred his reputation and hurt the PSOE in León.
- The separate ‘Tito Berni’ investigation into alleged bribes has charged only one Socialist, Juan Bernardo Fuentes Curbelo, who resigned from the party in 2023.