Paloma Lago answers the phone from her home in Galicia: “It’s a very delicate situation, I remained silent out of respect for justice as I was asked, and now, after the things I’ve heard these last few days and with the judicial truth in hand, I no longer have to keep quiet.” That’s the first thing she says, and it’s the first time the presenter and model has spoken since it became known that in 2025 she had filed a complaint against the then conselleiro do Mar of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Villares (with the PP), for a sexual assault offense. She explains that she does it “to tell the judicial truth.”
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Lago breaks her silence after Villares appeared before the media last Thursday, at a hotel in Santiago de Compostela, for just over eight minutes and without allowing questions, to announce that the case had been dismissed. He alluded to the fact that “a judge [from the Ferrol court that investigated the case], three magistrates [from the Provincial Court who ordered the provisional dismissal] and the public prosecutor himself” had said “the same thing” he had already argued: “That the accusation lacked any kind of foundation and that there was no basis whatsoever to prosecute me.”
However, the Provincial Court’s order, to which this newspaper has had access and which is the latest issued, does not affirm such matters: it is a provisional dismissal order and not a definitive dismissal. That is to say, the case can be reopened at any time if new evidence emerges. The ruling, dated April 8, is final and no appeal can be made against it. Furthermore, “the Police currently continue with their open lines of investigation,” Lago points out. She adds: “There is a possibility that they will continue to do so for 15 years,” which is when the crime would prescribe.
The judicial document states that the case is provisionally dismissed because there is not enough evidence to open an oral trial against Villares. However, it clarifies that what is known after the investigation is not “conclusive enough to justify a definitive closure of the case.”
Lago reported Villares at the beginning of 2025 for a sexual assault offense, which according to the documentation occurred on the afternoon of December 27, 2024, at her home, where both were present. A National Police patrol and an ambulance went to Lago’s house that evening after her son’s alert, after she called him to say she wasn’t feeling well and needed help. According to the summary conclusion order, Lago’s statement was “persistent in the incrimination and plausible in its exposition, complying with the parameters established by the repeated jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.”
What does the provisional dismissal order explain?
The order explains that for an oral trial to be opened against someone, three conditions must be met: that there is a verifiable fact, that this fact constitutes a crime, and a person to whom, with sufficient evidence, that crime can be imputed. If any of the three is not met, the case can be definitively closed ―the definitive dismissal―, which is what Villares’ defense requested. According to article 637 of the Criminal Procedure Law, justice permanently dismisses a case when there are not “sufficient elements” to affirm that something happened, because what happened was not a crime, or because even if it was, there is no one to prosecute for it (because they have died, for example).
The same order states that “the logic of provisional dismissal is different,” which occurs when there is “a deficit of evidence” that prevents an oral trial from being opened against the accused, but that this does not mean that the court is saying that the events did not occur. “In the present case,” the ruling adds, “the appropriate procedural response is provisional dismissal.”
Villares, when asked by this newspaper about last Thursday’s statements, including that the accusation “lacked foundation,” does not deny that it was an inaccuracy, refers again to his own appearance before the media and recalls that “the order also states that there was a detailed and diligent investigation and that it is a broad and thorough investigation.”
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The order further explains that the judicial investigation was “developed with notable breadth and even pursued lines of inquiry that went beyond the original terms of the complaint” and that it was precisely this extensive investigation that “makes it difficult” for the magistrates to definitively close the case. The document states that what is known so far “does not present the Chamber with a clear and terminal conclusion.”
Furthermore, the order describes it in a second way: “In other words, the very breadth of the investigation has ended up configuring an investigative picture that is more open than conclusive, more revealing of insufficient justification than of negative certainty.”
That is what Lago asks to be explained: “It was a complex and delicate procedure and the recommendation was not to make any statement. Out of respect for that procedure and the investigation, I did not speak. Now it is an obligation for me to clarify the truth, that there is no resolution that has acquitted him and the latest order leaves the possibility ―and the hope― of clarifying and discovering what happened that day. That is what matters to me.”
In June 2025, the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia ―competent because Villares had special jurisdiction― charged him in this case. He resigned from his position as counselor and was honorably dismissed by the government of the popular Alfonso Rueda. The case was transferred to a court in Ferrol, where Villares testified on September 15, and now, with this “provisional dismissal,” he stated last Thursday that he would request his re-entry into the PP, and considered that his “good name” had been “unjustly damaged.”
Those statements, Lago affirms, made all eyes turn to her: “Silence is not weakness, silence is respect for the police investigation and for justice. The times of justice and truth are sacred and no one can override them.”
The 016 helpline assists victims of gender violence, their families, and their environment 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number is not recorded on the phone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. You can also contact via email 016-online@igualdad.gob.es and by WhatsApp at 600 000 016. Minors can contact the ANAR Foundation helpline 900 20 20 10. In an emergency, you can call 112 or the National Police (091) and Civil Guard (062) phone numbers. And if you cannot call, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, which sends an alert signal to the Police with geolocation.
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