A passage from the witness statement of witness Maribel Vilaplana is especially terrifying. While the ravines tributaries to the Poyo Rambla overflowed and dozens and dozens of people drowned, President Carlos Mazón calmly walked towards a central parking lot in the company of the communicator, with whom he had shared a table and tablecloth at the El Ventorro restaurant until 6:45 p.m. At that time, after having tasted the establishment's menu and shared a bottle of wine, they remained “for a while chatting” on the way to the parking lot, according to the minutes of Maribel Vilaplana's statement from November 3, to which elDiario.es has had access.
Although she could not “precise” the exact time, she remembered to “lengthen the conversation” about Levante UD, the club for which she is an advisor and spokesperson. Vilaplana wanted Mazón to attend a Granota team match as president, as a way to score a point with his Levante UD superiors. “She was not in a hurry, nor did she have a feeling of rush on the part of the other party. Everything was completely normal,” the minutes of the statement indicate. He also did not notice that Mazón was escorted by his security team.
The walk lasted about “five or 10 minutes.” They went from the discreet Bonaire street, where El Ventorro is located, to the entrance to the parking lot in Plaza de Tetuán, at the foot of the Bancaja Foundation building and in front of the General Captaincy. “Then they were still talking for a while,” the minutes add.
The time slot coincides fully with Mazón's call (at 6:48 p.m.) with the general director of Communication and Institutional Promotion, Francisco González. Also with the two brief calls that the head of the Consell had with the general secretary of the Valencian PP and spokesperson in the Corts, Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca, at 6:57 p.m. “During the time they are talking, he is also on the phone,” Vilaplana explained to the judge.
On the other hand, at 7:10 p.m. there is a “canceled call” with Carlos Mazón's mobile phone number in the notarial record that outlines Salomé Pradas' telephone communications.
After finishing the conversation, focused on “football,” the president “Mazón does not tell him where he is going before leaving.” “She doesn't tell him where she's going either,” the statement notes. “He didn't notice Mazón was in a hurry,” he stated before the judge.
Five minutes in the parking lot: the ticket, the WhatsApp and the laptop
The communicator and consultant (she no longer considers herself a journalist, as she clarified before the judge) “always leaves the ticket in the car.” With which, he went down to his vehicle, which “never” parks on the first floor, and “took the opportunity to turn off the computer properly, because he had turned it off abruptly.”
He also “took the opportunity to make some notes that he had left halfway” about a consulting session given that morning at the Ford factory in Almussafes, before the dinner with Carlos Mazón.
Then “he looked at his cell phone, saw the WhatsApp messages, took the ticket (and) went up” to pay the amount for his vehicle's stay in the parking lot. In total, “he would be there for five minutes, he doesn't know how to calculate it, he wasn't there for long,” the minutes of the statement indicate.
The witness did not have the parking ticket, although she gave the license plate number to the Attorney of the Administration of Justice so that the company that manages the subway could be requested to provide information on the departure time. The judge is waiting to receive the report from the parking lot, to clarify the departure time of the vehicle.
Vilaplana stressed that “he has no interest in covering up or uncovering anything or covering up anyone,” as he said. She “has no responsibility” nor “put a gun to (Mazón)'s head to make him stay there.” “You don't know what was going through this man's head, or what he was thinking,” the minutes add.
A “professional” meal: neither “institutional nor personal”
Vilaplana offered to pay his part of the bill. “He told him that it was done, but he did not physically see how the food was paid, nor did they upload a data phone to pay,” the minutes indicate.
It was a “professional” meal (neither “institutional nor personal”), without an “agenda.” Both knew each other from a chance meeting on October 11 in which Vilaplana, Mazón and a member of the Presidency team ended up at the La Raspa tavern.
On October 14, at a business event held in Paterna in which the president had an enthusiastic and complimentary speech about the communicator's skills, they met again.
After the speeches, at the subsequent cocktail party, Mazón told him: “I need to talk to you, I would like us to have some kind of collaboration, tell me when and how we could meet and when it would be good for you.” They consulted their agendas and set a date “unofficially.” The only photograph of Mazón and Vilaplana is precisely from that night.
Mazón's WhatsApps
Two weeks later, with a red alert for dana from early in the morning, both diners sat down at a table in a booth on the upper floor of El Ventorro (it was going to be in another restaurant, specifically in El Encuentro, but in the end there was no room there).
During the agape, Mazón “was constantly on his cell phone,” declared Vilaplana. Alfredo Romero, the owner of the restaurant, took the dishes to the booth, where the president and the communicator shared a large table. It was a “slow” meal, according to Maribel Vilaplana. They only shared a broth, no drinks.
While she put away her cell phone, Carlos Mazón had his phone “on the table.” In addition to the calls, “remember that above all he WhatsApped, or wrote messages.”
During the meal they talked about the closure in 2013 of Channel 9, the former regional television station—a traumatic experience for Vilaplana—or the use of Valencian. The communicator confirmed that she was not interested in any position at À Punt, the new public channel, and that for her, joining any position of a political nature was like shooting herself in the foot, given her dedication to the private sector.
The post-traumatic stress of El Ventorro and the lynching
Maribel Vilaplana cried a lot during her statement. So much so that the judge paused so she could go to the bathroom and calm down a little. In the last conversation he had with Mazón, just a couple of days after the catastrophe, the president told her that he was forced to recognize that she was the diner at the controversial meal at the restaurant.
The head of the Consell apologized to her and she had a “panic attack”, deleted all WhatsApp messages with Mazón and even deleted her phone number from her agenda, as reported by this newspaper. “He doesn't have it today,” said Maribel Vilaplana in reference to Carlos Mazón's phone number.
When it was revealed that she was the one accompanying Mazón at the long meal, she began to receive sexist insults on social networks (from “whore” on up) and pressure from the media.
Maribel Vilaplana lamented that “everything is distorted” and that “she feels used”, in the middle of a battle in which she appears almost by chance, having been summoned by the president precisely on a day that would end in a colossal tragedy.
La dana and Mazón, “a damn coincidence”
“It is very hard to think that this is a damn coincidence, that he cannot accept, that it has been repeated so many times why it had to be that day, that it was bad luck,” he said before the judge, the prosecutor and the lawyers.
Although he did not consider himself a victim, Vilaplana “lost a friend in the dana and could not go to the funeral because he was in the hospital with a brutal anxiety attack.”
The witness, in psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress, described her situation a year after the El Ventorro meal: “She doesn't know how she is going to be able to survive”; “He has nightmares,” and “in his head it is very difficult to cope.”
He does not consider himself a victim, he concluded, “but rather a fatal consequence” of the meal with Mazón in El Ventorro.