Peinado retires after sending Begoña Gómez to trial and after a whole career of eccentricities

MadridAt the beginning of April 2024, few people knew Juan Carlos Peinado. His name rose to fame when on April 24th it became known that he had opened a case against Begoña Gómez, the wife of Pedro Sánchez, following a complaint from Manos Limpias. A decision that led to the five days of reflection during which the Spanish president considered resigning, although in the end he decided to continue. Last Monday, five days before his retirement—this Saturday the BOE already publishes his forced retirement at 72 years of age—, the controversial judge put the finishing touch on his career by sending Begoña Gómez to trial before a jury for influence peddling and embezzlement.

This is not the first controversial investigation by this magistrate, who was born in 1954 in a small town in Castile and León, El Tiemblo (Ávila), a municipality of just over 4,500 inhabitants. He has been serving in Madrid's investigative court 41 for years, but it has not always been this way: he entered the judicial career through an unorthodox path, the so-called third turn, when he was 40 years old. An access route now abolished for jurists of recognized prestige who do not go through the general competitive examinations for judges. Before reaching his position in Madrid, he served as a judge of first instance in his home province in Arenas de San Pedro, in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo), and in Getafe (Madrid). He has always been linked to the teaching of law at the Complutense University of Madrid and, previously, he had also worked as a city council secretary.

He is not the only member of his family who has been linked to the local sphere. His daughter, María Peinado, is a PP councilor in Pozuelo de Alarcón, something that has been used by ministers such as Óscar Puente to accuse him of bias towards the right.

A highly questioned instruction

Over the last two and a half years, the magistrate has led a long-debated investigation into Begoña Gómez that has suffered multiple corrections by the Madrid Provincial Court and has earned him the reproaches and criticism of the Spanish president himself, who went so far as to accuse him of “playing politics”. In contrast, he has gained followers among the detractors of the PSOE, who have even chanted his name at demonstrations against the Spanish government.

This September 27th he turns 72, and he has been forced to retire once he completed his final mission: to have Begoña Gómez sit in the dock. It is ammunition for the PP, but it could also be a catalyst for the PSOE. Sources consulted by ARA predict that the trial will be before the summer, which could place it just after the general elections or on the eve of the polls. Just a year ago, on a Saturday afternoon in autumn, he summoned Begoña Gómez to a preliminary hearing in the first attempt to send the case before a popular jury. It was the latest plot twist in a singular investigation.

Among other things, Peinado went to the Moncloa twice. The first, in July 2024, to question Pedro Sánchez as a witness, but the Spanish president exercised his right not to testify about his wife and ended up filing a lawsuit against him that came to nothing. Nine months later, he returned to question Félix Bolaños, also as a witness. Peinado even tried to have the Supreme Court indict the Minister of the Presidency, but the high court blocked his path by rebuking him for an “absolute absence of any minimally founded indication or one endowed with plausibility”.

But there is more. During that tense interrogation, the judge asked for a platform to be physically above the rest of the people and even reproached the minister for drawing a “smile” while answering. Recently, the judiciary has archived the complaints that the minister filed against the judge. It also closed the file on the complaint from Begoña Gómez's advisor regarding the leak of a court order before it was signed. The CGPJ did refer two complaints against him to the TSJ of Madrid, but they also ended up being a dead letter. One of the two was related to the suspicions that one of Begoña Gómez's bodyguards could help her flee. This Friday, Bolaños spoke of the judge's "impunity" in another letter to the CGPJ.

The corrections of the Madrid Court

A constant during the investigation of Begoña Gómez's case has been the setbacks coming from the Madrid Court. Three of the seven defendants there have been ended up exonerated by the higher court: Joaquín Goyache –rector of the Complutense University–, Juan José Güemes –president of the IE Business School– and Francisco Martín –delegate of the Spanish government in Madrid–. It was also the Madrid Court that returned the passport to Begoña Gómez and who, at the last minute, withdrew two crimes for which she was being investigated. Furthermore, Peinado has insistently tried to expand the perimeter of the case to put the focus on the Air Europa bailout, but the Madrid Court has repeatedly stopped him in his tracks. The third and final time, in November 2025, it reproached him that he was basing himself on “mere suspicions without the slightest evidence”.

The other episodes

During the investigation, Peinado has shown his eccentric character. A lawyer who worked with him recounts to ARA an episode from a few years ago. She went to speak with the judge to organize the schedule, and Peinado disparaged maternity leave: "You can give birth and work the next day, I don't know why you take so much leave," she now recalls him saying at that moment. The same lawyer considers that his resolutions "are not at all motivated" and stresses that the Madrid Provincial Court "almost never agrees with him."

There is an episode that also relates him to Catalonia. In November 2019 he charged a dozen journalists for publishing information from the summary of the CDR case of Operation Judas when it was under seal. The Association of Journalists of Catalonia considered it an "attack on freedom of the press." However, he backtracked a week later because the Public Prosecutor's Office opposed the investigation, relying on the right to transmit truthful information.

Another victim of the judge was Nervis Villalobos, who was Deputy Minister of Electric Energy in Venezuela from 2004 to 2006. It was in 2018 when he sent him to provisional prison twice, and the Madrid Provincial Court had to correct the magistrate by ordering his release. Two years later, the Constitutional Court concluded that the judge had violated his right to personal liberty because he "did not respect the legal guarantees of information and access" to the "essential elements" of the accusations, nor the "guarantees of contradiction and equality of arms."