The PSOE dissociated the former mayor of Linares (Jaén), Javier Perales, from any complaint of sexual harassment. Perales, who is currently a councilor, provincial deputy and member of the regional executive of the Andalusian PSOE, was denounced last July by María Teresa Márquez, president of the Association of Hoteliers of Linares, for alleged harassment, an accusation for which the public prosecutor’s office requested his file.
The PSOE indicated that neither the complaint nor the legal proceedings followed in recent months have anything to do with an offense of sexual harassment. “In any event, it would be an alleged minor offense within the meaning of article 173.4 (unfair insults or humiliation) of the Penal Code, which is not linked to events linked to harassment, abuse or sexual assault,” they emphasize.
The Linares businesswoman’s complaint specifically refers to a public meeting in which the then mayor of Linares allegedly told her in front of everyone present that “he was hyped and excited” to go after him, something Perales ruled out doing.
According to the socialists, the complainant herself – who could not be located by this newspaper – never filed a complaint against sexual freedom, but presented facts that she classified in article 175 (against moral integrity), but which were also dismissed by the judge herself responsible for investigating the complaint filed against Perales.
The socialist leader himself also categorically denied having committed a minor offense of humiliation, an offense which, in any case, would already have prescribed. Thus, once all the procedural steps arising from this complaint were completed, the prosecutor’s office asked the investigating court to close all the proceedings, a file that also requested the representation of Perales himself.
The complaint filed by María Teresa Márquez was the consequence of another complaint that Perales himself filed against her in September 2024. A legal action, which had already been rejected by the Provincial Court of Jaén, and which was justified by the attacks, with alleged insults and slander, that Perales received when he was mayor of Linares from the president of the Hoteliers Association. The PSOE then declared that “the limits of the right to honor, to private and family life and to the image of each person had been exceeded.”
Perales said that as soon as the complaint against him is confirmed, he will file a complaint for slander against María Teresa Márquez. Meanwhile, the PP has been demanding for some time from the PSOE that the former municipal councilor abandon all his functions, both organic and institutional, until the complaint filed by the entrepreneur from Linares is resolved.
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