The popular prosecution led by the ultracatholic association Hazte Oír has changed its request for prison for Begoña Gómez in the criminal case against her for allegedly using her status as the wife of the Prime Minister to boost her career: from 24 to 13 years in prison. The modification comes after the Provincial Court decided to partially endorse the controversial investigation by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado and send Gómez before a popular jury, but reducing the crimes from four to two: influence peddling and embezzlement. For Cristina Álvarez, her assistant at La Moncloa, the popular prosecution requests six years in prison.
Read more The last man of Tula, a ghost town in the Guerrero Mountain to which no one can return
In its conclusions, Hazte Oír adapts its accusation to the limits established by the Court and thus sets its prison request for Pedro Sánchez’s wife. For the alleged influence peddling in the creation of a professorship at the Complutense University of Madrid, it requests two years in prison; for embezzlement of public funds, another 11: three for her assistant’s public salary, to whom she allegedly assigned tasks for the professorship, and eight for the alleged “lucrative appropriation” —”or destination for private use without appropriative intent,” they clarify— of software developed in said professorship. In the event that the court appreciates a “medial concurrence” between the two crimes —that is, that one served for the commission of the other—, the popular prosecution requests a single sentence of 10 years in prison for Gómez.
After Peinado sent the Prime Minister’s wife, her assistant, and businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés —whom he accused of helping Gómez in her professional projects in exchange for “support” to obtain “public tenders”— before the jury, the Provincial Court limited the scope of the procedure: for now, Barrabés was left out of the equation due to lack of evidence. And furthermore, it dismissed the crimes of business corruption and misappropriation.
Regarding the first of these, the magistrates clarified that “there is no sufficiently credible evidence that the investigated persons have received gifts, presents, or economic advantages, direct or indirect, lacking justification within the framework of the activity carried out by the professorship.” “On the contrary,” they added, “the agreements and economic contributions made by the companies [that collaborated with the professorship] appear linked to its own purposes.”
Read more Endless chainsaw: Milei, forced to cut more spending to compensate for the fall in revenue
Regarding misappropriation, which Judge Peinado linked to the software, the Court was less categorical: it clarified that the Penal Code does not provide for its application to an “intangible or immaterial asset.” But, delving into this thesis and also rejecting disloyal administration, it pointed out that any reprehensible behavior related to a “pecuniary benefit” must “be framed” here “within the scope of embezzlement.”
In addition to prison sentences, Hazte Oír —as leader of a popular prosecution also made up of the Vox and Iustitia Europa parties, the pseudosyndicate Manos Limpias, and the Movimiento de Regeneración Política de España association— requests that Begoña Gómez be condemned, for the crime of influence peddling, to a fine “double the benefit sought or obtained,” as well as the loss of the possibility of obtaining public subsidies or aid and the right to enjoy tax and Social Security benefits or incentives for a period of 10 years. And they request, for the trial, that Gómez’s “economic capacity” be ascertained to specify the fine.
For embezzlement, the popular prosecution requests the suspension from public employment or office for four years and absolute disqualification —a definitive deprivation of all honors, public employments, and offices— for 20 years.
Read more Enjoy a free movie now (and effortlessly) on Rakuten TV, courtesy of Microsoft Rewards