Judge Santiago Pedraz orders a new dump of Juanma Serrano's cell phone in the Leire case

The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz this morning ordered a new dump of the mobile phone of Juanma Serrano, former chief of staff of Pedro Sánchez and former president of Correos. Serrano is being investigated in the so-called Leire case, in reference to Leire Díez, known as the PSOE plumber, who is being investigated for the alleged crimes of fraud, document falsification, embezzlement, influence peddling and prevarication.

Pedraz authorized the examination of Serrano's phone in an order issued on July 10 after finding evidence of his possible involvement in the plot of the PSOE plumber who allegedly tried to "influence judicial processes" and made "irregular hiring." However, Serrano's defense requested the annulment of that dump because it was made without his lawyer being present.

Thus, the new cloning began to be carried out this morning in a sealed room of the National Court. Cloning will be completed in a period of between eight and nine hours. When finished, the content will be moved to a hard drive. Serrano and his lawyer have been summoned again tomorrow at the National Court starting at 10:30 a.m. to verify this last part of the process. The previous clone will be voided as evidence. The Civil Guard will prepare a report with the data extracted today from Serrano's phone that will be incorporated into the case.

Serrano's phone, an iPhone 15 Pro Max, was seized by the police between May 27 and 28 of this year. Since then, the device was in custody, but its interior was not exhaustively accessed until the judge ordered it in the order issued on July 10. The investigations carried out by Pedraz regarding other defendants, mainly Díez, revealed the existence of 9,355 WhatsApp messages and another 1,487 Signal messages between Serrano and the PSOE plumber. Those thousands of messages were the trigger for the opening of a “new avenue of investigation” about Serrano.

Until that moment, Serrano appeared to have “diffuse responsibility,” but the evidence found in other materials seized from members of the plot made the judge consider “necessary and appropriate” the measure of registering his own mobile phone to determine if he promoted or directed the illicit operation. Consequently, the magistrate ordered the overturning of Serrano's cell phone. The first cloning has been annulled, but the one carried out today, in the presence of Serrano's lawyer, will be the basis for a new report from the Civil Guard with which the judge will try to support his investigation.

Pedraz's main objective in proceeding to examine Serrano's mobile phone, who according to the Civil Guard, connected Leire Díez to the Post Office, is to "determine whether Serrano limited himself to consenting to said illicit operation or whether his responsibility extended to promoting and directing it." The magistrate has focused on Serrano's management at the head of Correos, since during his presidency alleged irregular hirings were detected that, according to the judge, would have his "acquiescence."