Judge Juan Carlos Peinado agreed last week before a second popular jury the main part of the open investigation against Begoña Gómez, in which he investigates his activity at the Complutense University and his relations with businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés. The magistrate has summoned the wife of the president of the Government on Monday, his advisor in La Moncloa, Cristina Álvarez, and Barrabés to formally communicate that if they finally sit on the bench for the four crimes attributed to them it will be a court formed by Citizens who determine whether or not it is guilty.
Days before, the magistrate had decided to direct the part of the cause centered on the alleged embezzlement for the work carried out by the Moncloa advisor who assists the wife of the President of the Government. The decision to anticipate a second possible trial with popular jury is the last movement of the judge in the investigations that opened almost a year and a half after receiving a complaint from the pseudosindicato ultra clean hands supported by press information, some directly false.
Apart from the aforementioned embezzlement, the main piece accumulates several ramifications without the investigation known so far, there are evidence of corruption crimes in the private sector, influence peddling, improper appropriation and intrusion that the magistrate investigates, in which it considers “fundamental” the “relationship of kinship” with the chief of the Executive. In fact, the documents and testimonies that discard the suspicions of the magistrate, which has expanding the cause supported by the accusations of the extreme right while the Prosecutor's Office has come to accuse the magistrate of acting with “great sound” but without “legal support”.
Corruption and influence peddling
The complaint that gave rise to the case accused Begoña Gómez to benefit businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés, a well -known entrepreneur of the Internet sector awarded public contracts who collaborated in the chair that she co -directed at the Complutense University. According to clean hands, the businessman and the UTE of which he participated were benefited in a contract of 8.3 million for the “letters of recommendation” he received from the president's wife.
Actually, Begoña Gómez, as co -director of that chair, signed a statement of interest that Barrabés presented in that contest, where she proved that the master who was going to collaborate with the training program to which Barrabés opted. It was a type letter: identical to which 32 more people signed. Among others, the director of the Employment Agency of the Madrid City Council. The UCO did not find “differentiating elements” that aim that the awards of Red.es to Barrabés had been valued differently from other similar files for the “impact” of those letters, although the Provincial Court did endorse to move forward with the investigations.
The European Prosecutor's Office ended up assuming that part of the investigation by verifying that the contracts had been financed in part with European funds. A report of the intervention known this week details the multiple irregularities in the contracting system used by Red.es in the contract awarded to Barrabés, but does not collect any evidence that the letter signed by Begoña Gómez influenced the award.
When he lost control of that part of the investigations when the European Prosecutor's Office took over, Peinado chose to investigate whether Begoña Gómez could have had some kind of influence in the other public contracts with different administrations that obtained a barrabic company for 21 million euros. At the moment, there has been no indication that the president's wife intervened in those tenders.
In a recent letter, Begoña Gómez's defense states that analyzing all Barrabés contracts with different public administrations is “a certainly exorbitant investigation that touches the notes of a prospective investigation.” “It is something similar to whether in relation to the commission of a crime of documentary falsehood by a citizen, all documents issued by it will be investigated to determine if other crimes of falsehood have been able to be committed,” writes his lawyer, Antonio Camacho.
One of the last writings of the Prosecutor's Office contributed to the summary tries to refute the mantra of the “private businesses” of the woman's president who insistently alludes the accusations of extreme right that support the cause. The prosecutor figure in 40,000 euros the money that Begoña Gómez charged in a decade between 2012 and 2022, as co -director of a course and two masters in the Complutense. Of these, 8,123 perceived them in the years before Pedro Sánchez arrived in the presidency of the Government, in 2018. By the chair, which is the activity from which part of the investigations of Judge Peinado derived, he received no remuneration.
Misappropriation
In relation to his professional activity in the Complutense, the judge admitted in October 2024 a complaint of the Ultra Hazteoir Association. The complaint accused Begoña Gómez to appropriate software that was developed free of charge for the chair and the master of competitive social transformation that he co -directed in the Complutense between 2020 and 2022. The court has passed more than a dozen responsible of the University and managers of technological and the Ibex who sponsored the chair and their testimonies have not corroborated those accusations.
The tool was paid with Indra funds (128,442 euros) and Google (110,000 euros). But, at least to date, the accusations have not been able to prove that Gomez did business with that software. Nor that the companies that financed it have achieved any preferential treatment in their relations with the Complutense.
The defense of Begoña Gómez has been claiming that the term competitive social transformation was devised by her and that proposed to the Complutense to be used in the chair and some of the masters he taught. The lawyer Antonio Camacho affirms in one of his last writings that he only registered the logo of the website to prevent it from being incorrectly used. In the investigation it has been accredited that he never registered that brand in the Intellectual Property Registry. And there is also an email, of September 7, 2022, in which from the Office of Transfer of Research Results (OTRI) of the Complutense they were given indications on the registration of the web that would give access to that free tool.
The Prosecutor's Office, on the other hand, believes that this accusation has “faded” as a consequence of the emails that consist of the summary and that “highlight the explanations of how it had and how to register (the software) and the initiated procedures.” “It has not appropriated any software. There was no profit of profit,” writes the prosecutor José Manuel San Baldomero, who recalls that in the chair agreement he appears that the creation of that software was one of the “main ideas” of the chair. The software was a technological tool so that companies, especially SMEs, could integrate the social and ecological impact into their business strategy.
Intrusation
Hazteoiar also accused Begoña Gómez of a crime of intrusion for allegedly writing and signed specifications for a chair service contract related to that same technological tool without having the required technical degree. However, in the case it has been accredited that they were responsible for the Complutense and the manager himself who indicated that these sheets should be signed by a head of the chair. In addition, the Complutense's auditor declared that, according to the regulations, Begoña Gómez was the one who had to sign the specifications since she was head of the department.
“It does not seem like a case of a criminal nature and there is no malicious element anywhere, it seems to the most administrative irregularity,” says the prosecutor. Also in one of his latest writings, the defense of Begoña Gómez remembers that various electronic emails sent by the university for which Pedro Sánchez's wife is signed to be signed by the aforementioned sheets of technical prescriptions with some promptness, since the calendar year ended and this could have problems from the budgetary point of view.