Begoña Gómez's assistant denounces a political trial, asks for her acquittal, and blasts HazteOír's "reckless" accusation

The defense of Cristina Álvarez, Begoña Gómez's assistant at La Moncloa, has requested her acquittal for the alleged crime of embezzlement and has demanded that the popular prosecution led by HazteOír pay the legal costs. Her lawyer considers that the organization acted with "recklessness" by attributing to her behaviors that, even accepting their own account, would lack criminal content.

Lawyer José María de Pablo has once again presented his conclusions before the controversial judge Juan Carlos Peinado after the Provincial Court of Madrid reduced the scope of the procedure. The court left Álvarez linked only to the alleged embezzlement related to the computer program developed for the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and ruled out that she could be tried for influence peddling.

The brief states that Álvarez did not intervene in the contracting of the 'TransformaTSC' domain, nor did she participate in its transfer to Begoña Gómez and remained outside the registration of the brand and the creation of the company Transforma TSC SL. "There can be no greater recklessness," states the defense when demanding that HazteOír assume the expenses caused by its accusation.

The contradictions denounced by the defense

One of the main arguments is directed against HazteOír's own construction. The prosecution attributes to Álvarez necessary cooperation in the contracting of the domain, but acknowledges that this management was carried out by Blanca de Juan, coordinator of the Extraordinary Chair of Competitive Social Transformation. De Juan does not even appear as investigated in the procedure.

For the defense, it is "absurd" to accuse Álvarez of collaborating in a contracting that another person would have carried out on her own. Her lawyer attributes this decision to an "exclusively political and media intentionality" and maintains that the facts used to request a six-year prison sentence would still not constitute a crime even if they were considered true.

Álvarez does acknowledge that she voluntarily helped Begoña Gómez in certain administrative tasks of the chair due to the professional relationship they maintained and their friendship. She emphasizes, however, that she acted following her instructions and with the conviction that none of those tasks were illegal or prohibited.

The computer program had been developed as a free tool for small and medium-sized companies to measure their social and environmental impact. According to the document, the software remained hosted on a Google Cloud Platform server whose owners were a worker from the Complutense University and four technicians from Devoteam, a company subcontracted by Google.

The defense also recalls that, once Gómez was charged, her lawyer informed the university in September 2024 that the domain was about to expire and that she would not renew it. The Complutense did not take any action and the address stopped working, although the program continued to be hosted on the server and under the control of personnel linked to the university itself.

The trimmed case of the controversial judge Peinado

The Provincial Court of Madrid corrected in July part of the path traced by Peinado and limited Cristina Álvarez's situation to the alleged crime of embezzlement. Begoña Gómez continues within the procedure for embezzlement and influence peddling, while the crimes of business corruption and misappropriation that the instructor had also included were left out of the future jury trial.

HazteOír has lowered its requests after that judicial cut, but still demands six years in prison for the Moncloa assistant. The Prosecutor's Office, for its part, maintains that both Álvarez and Gómez should be acquitted. The Complutense University is a party as an injured party and requests compensation of 113,000 euros.

Álvarez's lawyer also questions that the popular accusation intends to call 120 witnesses, a good part of them without a direct relationship with the facts attributed to his client. He warns that this list could prolong a trial for months before nine titular jurors and two alternates, forced to set aside their professional and family responsibilities during that time.

The defense maintains that the procedure "is condemned to the dissolution of the jury" due to the lack of criminal content of the facts. Peinado must now study the presented documents and issue the resolution that determines the opening of the oral trial and the definitive terms in which Álvarez will appear before the court.