Begoña Gómez, wife of the Prime Minister, presented this Friday a new defense statement — signed by her new lawyer — in which she once again requests her acquittal in the case against her for allegedly using her status as the Prime Minister’s wife to advance her career. Gómez, who faces a 13-year prison sentence request for influence peddling and embezzlement in connection with the extraordinary chair she promoted and co-directed at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), argues in the statement that she neither took advantage of being Pedro Sánchez’s wife to influence university officials, authorities, or any public official to obtain the creation of the chair, nor did she benefit from it.
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The popular accusation led by HazteOír bases its prison request on three alleged criminal acts: influence peddling to achieve not only the creation of the chair but also to co-direct it — for which it requests a two-year sentence —; embezzlement of public funds by using her assistant at La Moncloa for professional matters — three years — and the alleged appropriation of a software developed within the chair — another eight — channeled through the registration of the website and a trademark in her name.
To defend against the first accusation, the new lawyer of the Prime Minister’s wife, criminal lawyer Jaime Campaner, provides a detailed review of Gómez’s professional career before the chair was established, emphasizing that she worked at the UCM “long before her husband became Prime Minister” and that her participation and appointment as co-director occurred within the rules.
The lawyer defends in this regard the meetings she had with university authorities or businessmen — which the accusation considers evidence of influence peddling — such as the one held in 2020 with the UCM rector, Joaquín Goyache, which took place at La Moncloa, a fact especially relevant for HazteOír, but also for the case instructor, the controversial Juan Carlos Peinado. The defense argues that if the meeting took place there, at Gómez’s residence, it was because the initially designated place was closed due to the pandemic. The idea of the chair arose there, it states.
The “appropriation” of the ‘software’
Regarding the fact that Gómez herself registered the trademark of the software in her name, her lawyer maintains that the registration with her email was done “with the sole purpose of giving the platform an initial identity until the project was completed and could be registered in the name of the UCM.” In this regard, the lawyer insists, Gómez registered it with her university email and expressly indicated that it was part of the chair.
Immediately after, the statement addresses another of the accusation’s theses: that the Prime Minister’s wife wanted to appropriate the chair’s web domain. From the university, the defense states, Gómez and her collaborators were informed that they could not register the domain, “since the UCM had never registered one,” and that they had to do it themselves. This was done by Blanca de Juan, coordinator of the chair, in September 2022. In July 2023, after leaving her position, she transferred the domains to the Prime Minister’s wife, who was paying for their maintenance. “Begoña’s action was functional and provisional, aimed at preventing third parties from taking over the domain and using it until the project was completed and could be registered in the name of the UCM,” concludes the lawyer.
“Begoña at no time acted with the intention of enriching herself and did not appropriate the technological platform (first thesis of the popular accusation) nor did she use it for private purposes without intending to appropriate it (second thesis of the popular accusation),” the statement emphasizes. It adds: “The UCM did not suffer any patrimonial damage. The expenses related to the development of the platform were financed with contributions made by the collaborating entities, as agreed in clause six of the agreement.” Furthermore, the lawyer insists, the university, after the “abrupt” cessation of the chair, was left with a balance of 29,685 euros.
Additionally, the lawyer defends that Gómez’s assistant at La Moncloa, Cristina Álvarez — also indicted — helped her occasionally with her professional tasks. In the approximately 50-page statement, Campaner first highlights that the scope of assistants’ tasks is not defined: “Since the arrival of democracy (more than 50 years ago), it has been customary for the Prime Minister’s spouses to necessarily have temporary support staff,” he stresses. Their functions, although not specified, include “support in all activities traditionally carried out by the Prime Minister’s spouse, both institutional and of a private or professional nature,” the defense of the Prime Minister’s wife emphasizes.
To support his argument, the lawyer goes further and provides as evidence My Eight Years at La Moncloa (2004), the memoirs of Ana Botella, former mayor of Madrid and wife of former Prime Minister José María Aznar, where she recounted how her assistant “accompanied her day to day, both in institutional activities and strictly private ones (for example, she participated in the preparations for her daughter’s wedding, accompanied her to fashion shows, and walked the Camino de Santiago with her).” And even photographs of the assistant to Mariano Rajoy’s wife, Jaime de los Santos (now in the Popular executive), carrying shopping bags from a store.
Although technically Gómez’s previous defense had already submitted its conclusions to the controversial investigation by Judge Juan Carlos Peinado — which ended with the Prime Minister’s wife and her assistant heading to a popular jury — this new statement responds to the fact that, last July, the Madrid Provincial Court withdrew two of the four charges against her and left only influence peddling and embezzlement. After this modification, the popular accusation led by Hazte Oír had to reduce its sentence request from 24 to 13 years in prison, and now the defenses respond. The Complutense University of Madrid, which is represented as an injured party, claims 113,000 euros. The Prosecutor’s Office, for its part, has announced that it will request the acquittal of both Begoña Gómez and Cristina Álvarez.
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