Former Orihuela councillor Martina Scheure sentenced to prison

The Eleventh Section of the Provincial Court of Alicante, based in Elche, has sentenced Martina Scheurer Wagner, the former Green Party councillor in charge of Coasts and Beaches in Orihuela, to two terms totalling three years in prison and a ten-and-a-half-year ban from holding public office. The sentence finds her guilty of administrative malfeasance in conjunction with fraud and of disclosing privileged information for providing businessman Thomas Herteux Wolfgang with details of the upcoming Orihuela Costa beach bar tender between 2012 and 2014, giving his company, Chiringuitos del Sol, an unfair advantage.

The court, presided over by Judge María Gracia Serrano Ruiz de Alarcón, sentenced Scheurer to one year and six months in prison and a seven-year ban from holding public office for malfeasance and fraud — crimes that carry prison sentences. In addition, she was sentenced to another year and six months in prison and a three-year and six-month ban from holding public office for disclosing privileged information. The sentence is not final, and an appeal may be filed with the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court.

The same ruling condemns businessman Thomas Herteux Wolfgang, the representative of Chiringuitos del Sol, to a total of three and a half years in prison. For the crime of malfeasance in conjunction with fraud, he receives a sentence of one year and six months in prison and two years and nine months of disqualification from obtaining subsidies, contracting with the public sector, and accessing tax or social security benefits. For the use of privileged information provided by an authority, he is sentenced to an additional two years in prison.

According to the ruling, the events date back to the contract for the operation of seasonal services on the beaches of Orihuela. Chiringuitos del Sol had already been awarded the concession to operate these summer services in 2006, a contract with an initial duration of four years and three annual extensions, which expired at the end of 2012. Before Scheurer took over as Councillor for Coasts and Beaches, the previous councillor had begun preparing the tender documents to put the service out to bid again, but after the change in leadership, the process was halted.

The former councillor of German origin who has now been convicted was part of a tripartite government with the PSOE and the CLR-Claro party, whose former councillor Pedro Mancebo has acted as the prosecutor in this case, under the legal representation of Santiago Talavera Vico.

The ruling establishes that Scheurer and Herteux acted in concert to ensure that the new contract was once again awarded to Chiringuitos del Sol, to the detriment of the interests of the municipality. According to the court, they first invoked the so-called “principle of continuity,” which allowed the company to continue operating the beach bars during the 2013 season. This additional year proved crucial. The court maintains that it enabled the company to prepare for and obtain the “Q” for Tourist Quality certification, which was later incorporated as a mandatory and exclusionary requirement in the 2014 tender and was not included in either the 2006 contract or the specifications prepared by the previous councillor.

The court considers it proven that Scheurer informed Herteux, before 22 April 2013, that the Q for Tourism Quality would be included in the future tender documents. This information was provided well before the tender was drafted and published.

Chiringuitos del Sol applied for the certificate on 22nd April 2013, for each of its operating establishments and also for its headquarters. The company obtained the certificates, valid from 9nd October 2013, after more than five months of processing. When the bidding process was launched, the company was already in a position to meet a requirement that its competitors could not obtain within the open bidding period, according to the case that went to trial following the investigation conducted by the Alicante Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which acted as the public prosecutor. The bidding resolution was signed on 22nd January 2014. According to the court, by that point the defendants had already done “everything possible” to close or significantly limit the award to any bidder other than Chiringuitos del Sol.

The ruling also highlights another striking fact: Chiringuitos del Sol owed the City Council the coastal fee corresponding to the years 2006 to 2012. The amount claimed totalled 934,443 euro. The company had never paid this fee, despite it being a contractual obligation. The Court states that both Scheurer and Herteux were aware of this debt before the new bidding process. Even so, there is no record of any action being taken to settle, demand payment, or collect it before the start of the contracting procedure.

The court also emphasises that Herteux submitted a declaration of responsibility with his bid stating that the company had no outstanding debts with the Orihuela City Council. Competing companies were excluded after the opening of the administrative envelope for failing to meet the requirement of the Q for Tourism Quality certification.

The court concluded that Scheurer placed the company Chiringuitos del Sol in a privileged position by leaking information that should not have been disclosed. The ruling determined that this action violated the principles of free access to bidding processes, publicity, transparency, equal treatment, and free competition, and arbitrarily ensured the awarding of the contract to Herteux’s firm.

The trial took place between March and June 2025, but the sentence was handed down more than a year later. The councillor voluntarily resigned from the Green Party when the case against her was opened. That party no longer has representation in the municipality, although the municipalist party Cambiemos, which emerged from the merger of left-wing groups (including the Greens), does.

The paradox is that the company now condemned, which can appeal to the Supreme Court, was awarded the main lots for the operation of beach bars on the Orihuela coast already under the government of the PP and Vox.