The fake prince being interviewed for Spanish TV.
Credit: Principe de Marbella, X.com
Notary sentenced to jail time while his self-declared ‘Prince of Marbella’ client walks free.
Antonio Pleguezuelos Velasco, AKA ‘The Prince of Marbella,’ has been acquitted by a Marbella court for posing as fictitious royalty, creating a fake principality website with fictitious ambassadors, and professing plans to begin minting his own currency.
The self-crowned prince may have got off, but his notary was not so lucky. Initially, both had been sentenced with fines of €2,250 in the case of Pleguezuelos and €3,600 in the case of the notary. Now, the High Court of Justice of Andalusia has quashed the conviction of Pleguezuelos as no real harm was done nor any specific crime followed through with.
Notary failed in his duties
The judicial ruling plainly states that a notarising act was made at the fake prince’s request, but the notary failed in his duties and accepted to notarise a false document and then enter it into the BOE (Official State Gazette), meaning if no one had contested the text in the BOE within 30 days, the princely document could have become recognised under Spanish law.
According to the sentence, the public notary ‘flagrantly violated the required due diligence in a thoughtless and unjustifiable way,’ without ever having seen, or requested to see, any authentic accreditation. Pleguezuelos had previously tried his hand at the office of another public notary but had been turned away.
Cosplaying not illegal
While the title of the non-existent position of Prince of Marbella could have been used for illegal purposes, there exists no law against cosplaying a non-existent royal. On the other hand, deliberately creating a fake legal document is considered rather serious.
The sham prince walked free, while his ex-notary is now facing jail time. The lawyer for Pleguezuelos claimed that all his client intended to do was ‘honour the Spanish crown and represent Marbella in the world, and that he had ‘always been a very monarchical person.’
