ARCHIVED - Former Trampolín Hills boss faces possible 7-year prison sentence

Antonio Martínez turns down plea bargain offer over alleged fraud at Solera El Trampolín

Antonio Martínez, one of the former owners and promoters of the failed Trampolín Hills residential development, has turned down a plea bargain offer from the prosecution as he prepares to stand trial for fraud.

The offer which Sr Martínez has decided not to accept consisted of a reduction of his proposed prison sentence from seven years to two in exchange for a plea of guilty, but the accused maintains that he never had any responsibility for the management of the company Solera El Trampolín on whose activities the charges he faces are based. Instead, he points the finger at his former business partner Rafael Aguilera in relation to the company.

The public prosecution service, mindful of the fact that this is an unusual case because the facts of the matter go back at least as far as the year 2007, made an unusually generous offer in return for a plea of guilty, but despite this Antonio Martínez remains adamant that he will not accept the blame attributed to him under any circumstances. While he was the sole administrator of the company Trampolín Hills Golf Resort SL, his lawyer reiterates that he had nothing to do with Solera El Trampolín, which worked on developments other than those in which he personally had an interest.

The prosecution will therefore go ahead with its attempts to secure 7-year jail sentences and fines of 5,400 euros for the two former business partners in relation to the alleged fraud perpetrated on around a dozen non-Spanish couple who purchased homes off plan in the Solera El Trampolín development, after properties were offered for sale in 2005 in the area of Gea y Truyols. Investigations prior to the trial have concluded that the properties concerned, which were sold as “free of charges”, were in fact subject to two mortgage loans with the CAM bank, a circumstance of which the buyers were not informed.

The result of this was that the purchasers unwittingly acquired not only a property but also debts of over 100,000 euros each on account of the mortgages, becoming aware of the fact only after receiving the keys to their homes in the sun and having believed that the amount outstanding on their purchases was no more than 7,000 euros.

Image: the promoter of Trampolín Hills with a model of the development which never came to fruition

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