The Madrid Court of Appeal has supported that Begoña Gómez sits on the bench before a jury for influence peddling and embezzlement, two of the four crimes attributed to her by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado.
Another of the crimes, the misappropriation of the software from her chair at the Complutense, the court reclassifies as embezzlement, which also includes the use of her advisor at La Moncloa as an assistant in private professional activities. The fourth crime, business corruption, is removed from the case.
In the same ruling, the court lifts the precautionary measures against the wife of the Prime Minister, whom Judge Juan Carlos Peinado had prohibited from leaving the country without authorization and required to appear every 15 days.
The decision was made by the Plenary of Section 23. The five judges who make it up also confirm that Gómez’s advisor at La Moncloa, Cristina Álvarez, will sit before the jury, although only for the crime of embezzlement related to the diversion of the software.
The third accused, businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, is removed from the jury trial. The court does not see sufficient evidence in his case of influence peddling and business corruption attributed to him.
This does not imply that he is exonerated criminally. The Chamber believes that the alleged favoritism by Begoña Gómez, who provided letters of recommendation for public contracts to her company, could constitute a crime of malfeasance. This is a crime that cannot be tried by a jury and is not yet sufficiently investigated, so the Court agrees to process it separately and, if there is finally evidence for it, to be tried before a professional court, not a jury.
The court’s assessment of Pedro Sánchez’s wife is that there is evidence of “her participation in alleged crimes of influence peddling committed by a private individual both in relation to the creation of the chair and in the intermediation in favor of Juan Carlos Barrabés and embezzlement of public assets committed by a public official in relation both to the destination of the software and the use for private purposes of her personal assistant, designated as the wife of the Prime Minister”.
The court’s decision to adjust the crimes and the accused who will face the jury will cause some delay in the case, as certain steps that had already been taken must be repeated.
