The judge of the ‘Neurona case’ has archived the investigation against the founder of Podemos Juan Carlos Monedero and has also lifted the accusation against the party as a legal entity.
Judge Juan José Escalonilla explains in a resolution that the investigation has dispelled suspicions that Monedero had charged a commission of 30,000 euros for the hiring by Podemos of the Mexican consultancy Neurona. The amount paid for these works for the April 2019 general elections was 363,000 euros.
The collection of the 30,000 euros per Monedero was blocked by the bank due to suspicions of money laundering. The invoice that the founder of Podemos presented in turn raised doubts in the Security Forces, who saw several indications that the invoice for 100 hours of consulting did not correspond to real work.
However, various emails examined in the investigation between Monedero and Neurona have dispelled suspicions, since they reflect work actually carried out. In fact, payers acknowledge that the 300 hours charged were actually more.
The resolution indicates that it is not technically possible that the emails examined could have been manipulated. “All this data is stored on servers managed by Google to which users do not have modification access,” indicates the judge, citing explanations from the Police.
Thus, the instructor concludes that “there are no indications” that Monedero “intermediated or had any participation in the contracting carried out by Unidas Podemos on February 27, 2019 with the company Neurona Comunidad S.L., nor therefore with the work of electoral consulting carried out on the basis of said contract by Neurona Consulting”.
In another resolution, the investigator of court 42 of Madrid has separated Podemos from the procedure in which he was accused. The cause has been limited to an electoral crime, for illicit financing, and in the law “the possible criminal responsibility of said political party is not foreseen.”