The politician and businessman Pablo Crespo Sabaris, number two of the Gürtel plot, he is now a free man, even if it is with conditions. The Penitentiary Surveillance judge of the National Court, José Luis Castro, issued an order this Friday, to which EL PAÍS has had access, by which he grants the former Secretary of Organization of the Galician PP and a key player in the corruption network early parole after having served, on December 13, two thirds of his sentence. Crespo, who has been collaborating with justice for years, has spent more than 12 years in prison, of which the last three have been in semi-freedom after being classified in third degree prison.
In the order, the judge points out that in his decision he has assessed “positively the age of the criminal acts (the plot was dismantled in February 2009)”, as well as “the low risk of recidivism” of Crespo and “the time of effective compliance” in prison. The resolution also highlights that the former number two of the Gürtel had a “normalized conduct during the sentence”, that he has made “good use of the open regime”, that he has a job in a law firm in Madrid and that he is “coping up with the civil liability payments” to which he was sentenced through seizures and monthly payments of his salary, to which he has committed in writing. Finally, he points out that he has “binding and positive family support” to ensure his reintegration.
The decision will be carried out in the coming days if it is not appealed, something unlikely since the Prosecutor’s Office has shown its agreement with the measure. However, when he is released on parole, Crespo will have to comply with a series of “rules of conduct” until his sentence is extinguished, which will occur on December 12, 2031. Thus, he will have to establish a residence address and communicate any change to the court. In addition, the social services of the Victoria Kent Social Integration Center (CIS), where he enjoyed the regime of semi-freedom, will monitor his situation, or prior to authorizing any movement.
The employer will also be obliged to “continue the work activity”, for which he must present documentation on a quarterly basis that confirms it, and will be obliged to “continue to pay the civil liability and provide documentation” for this. Finally, if you are “detained, implicated, charged, accused or convicted in criminal proceedings, during the period of conditional release”, you must notify the prison social services. When his release materializes and after that of the former treasurer of the PP, Luis Bárcenas, a little over a year ago, only one of the main ringleaders of the plot will remain in prison, Francisco Correa, who currently enjoys the regime of semi-freedom with telematic control so he does not have to go to the penitentiary center.
Crespo has been sentenced to sentences totaling more than 70 years in prison for the Gürtel caseand has yet to know the sentence of one of the pieces into which the macrocause was divided. However, this will not change their prison situation, since the National Court set a maximum sentence of 18 years (the law states that the maximum that a convicted person can serve is three times the crime with the highest sentence that he has received). During his stay in prison, Crespo has participated in the Economic Crimes Intervention Program (Pideco), aimed, among others, at those convicted of corruption. Pideco has been followed by other convicts in the Gürtel caselike Correa, Bárcenas and his wife, Rosalía Iglesias.
In an interview with this newspaper in December 2024, when he was already enjoying semi-freedom, Crespo admitted that regretting what he had done and taking the step to collaborate with justice was not easy. “It is not easy to recognize that you have committed a crime simply out of ambition, greed or having more money,” he stated then. The businessman also praised prison reintegration programs: “Having live testimonies from people who have been victims of a crime (inmates who participate in Pideco and other programs sit face to face with people who have suffered crimes) serves to increase empathy towards them. When I committed the crimes, I was aware that my actions were not correct, but now I am also aware that, in addition, it caused damage.”
