MADRID, Spain – Judge Juan Carlos Peinado has ordered that the wife of the prime minister, Begoña Gómez, be sent to trial by popular jury as accused of committing crimes of embezzlement of public funds and influence peddling. The magistrate issued this decision in an order handed down days before his forced retirement, which will take place on 27 September. In his ruling, Peinado also agreed to try Gómez’s adviser at Moncloa, Cristina Álvarez, for a crime of embezzlement.
Spanish Judge Orders Begoña Gómez to Justify Travel with Unstamped Passport
Throughout a 67-page resolution, Judge Peinado repeatedly stresses that he has the backing of the Provincial Court of Madrid, which in July endorsed the prosecution of Gómez for influence peddling and embezzlement, the latter crime related on the one hand to the appropriation of software financed by the Complutense University of Madrid and on the other to the use of her adviser for private purposes. Peinado’s document extensively reviews the facts that form part of the case, from the boost to Gómez’s career at the Complutense following Pedro Sánchez’s arrival at the Presidency of the Government, to the use of the Complutense software on a private domain, as well as the use of Álvarez’s services for private purposes despite being publicly funded.
Once the account of facts is completed, the judge sets out his conclusions, stating that from the chronological sequence exposed it indicatively follows that María Begoña Gómez Fernández had been taking advantage of her proximity to the prime minister to boost her professional projection in the Complutense University environment. He then specifies that Sánchez’s wife achieved a singular dialogue with officials of a public university, with sponsoring companies and with entities in the technology sector, while at the same time seeking support, financing, collaboration and institutional and business backing to create the Extraordinary Chair of Competitive Social Transformation. All of this integrates, in the view of Juan Carlos Peinado, into the crime of influence peddling.
Similarly, the magistrate points out that embezzlement has been committed insofar as Cristina Álvarez, temporary staff of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Government, allegedly intervened continuously in activities unrelated to the functions of her post, referring to the support she provided to Gómez in acts, meetings, emails, agreements, sponsorships, business dealings, economic matters and university actions linked to the chair and the software. This leads the judge to conclude that Gómez destined to private uses, and for her own benefit, the workforce of a public employee paid from the General State Budgets, conduct that presents elements susceptible of being subsumed under the crime of embezzlement insofar as it reveals a possible diversion of public resources for purposes other than those for which they were legally intended.
Regarding the software, Judge Peinado notes that it was developed within the chair with the participation of collaborating companies, university resources and institutional support. However, Gómez allegedly secured private control of its identifying signs, the domain transformatsc.org and the subsequent company Transforma TSC S.L, meaning the technological asset remained hosted on a website with a name matching the company of her exclusive ownership, without communication to the university or the collaborating entities.
This is the second occasion on which Judge Peinado has issued an order opening oral trial against the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. He did so previously, but on that occasion the order also included crimes of misappropriation and corruption in business. In addition, in the previous resolution he ordered the withdrawal of Gómez’s and Álvarez’s passports and prohibited them from leaving the country. That resolution was revoked in July by Section 23 of the Provincial Court of Madrid, which endorsed the prosecution of Begoña Gómez but only for the crimes of embezzlement and influence peddling, obliging Peinado to repeat the process, this time excluding corruption in business and misappropriation.
Peinado held the preliminary hearing prior to issuing the order opening oral trial on 8 September, during which the defences of the two accused and the Prosecutor’s Office requested the archiving of the case, while the popular accusations led by Hazte Oír requested a sentence of 13 years in prison. The following day the magistrate went on holiday and did not return until Friday, and this Monday, six days before retiring, he has brought to an end the investigation he has directed since 2024.
At Moncloa they were quick to condemn Peinado’s decision and reiterate that, in their view, what the entire investigation makes clear is that Begoña Gómez is innocent, stating that they maintain their full confidence that the jury will be fair and will impart justice. Government sources nevertheless want to make clear that they see arbitrariness and injustice in the entire investigation of Gómez who, in their opinion, has suffered judicial persecution for being the wife of the prime minister. They add that the fact that the order in this case is notified coinciding with an international trip by Pedro Sánchez, this time to New York for the UN General Assembly, demonstrates in the executive’s eyes that there is political intention, harassment and dehumanisation in the investigation, also claiming that the order was made public before being notified to the parties.
Madrid Court Upholds Jury Trial For Prime Minister’s Wife Begoña Gómez
That discourse has quickly spread to Ferraz and other socialist voices, with the PSOE leadership maintaining that this investigation has been erratic, disproportionate and difficult to understand from the very first moment, focusing precisely on Peinado’s resolutions that have subsequently been revised by higher instances, while placing the case on an openly political plane and considering that for more than two years Gómez has been subjected to a permanent television news sentence with the aim of wearing down Sánchez.
