Rosa Peral admitted yesterday before the judge that she gave her father the ownership of the house before she was sentenced. The person accused of the crime by the Barcelona Urban Guard testified yesterday that she was being investigated for a crime of theft of property and said that, before the sentence was final that condemned her for murder and to pay compensation, she transferred to her he owns half of the house he owns in Vilanova i la Geltrú.
The aim of this maneuver was supposedly to declare himself insolvent and avoid compensating the victim’s family. “We would lose the house because I couldn’t pay the mortgage, that’s why I put the house in my father’s name”, he argued before the judge. The defendant admitted the change of name and that this procedure was carried out a few days before the sentence was declared final by the Supreme Court.
In his statement – and also his father, Francisco, investigated in the same procedure -, ex-agent Peral omitted that since his arrest it was already his parent who had assumed the payment of the monthly mortgage receipts. Francisco Peral assumed this payment in exchange for his daughter not having to pay the father of her granddaughters the alimony and for the grandfather to use the house.
The court verdict for the murder of her boyfriend, Pedro Rodríguez, sentenced Rosa Peral to 25 years in prison for murder and to the payment of compensation of 885,000 euros to be paid jointly with the other defendant, Albert Lopez. If you do not have this amount, your assets will be seized until the claimed amount is reached. However, six days before the Supreme Court convened to issue the sentence, Peral transferred to her father 50% of the ownership of the house she shared with her ex-husband in Vilanovai la Geltrú, the address where she later lived with Pedro Rodríguez where the crime was committed.
Peral summoned a notary to Mas d’Enric prison, in Tarragona, where he is serving his sentence, to proceed with the name change. The victim’s family interpreted this move as a way of hiding their assets and avoiding the payment of the compensation to which the conviction obliged them, for which they filed a complaint that has led to the beginning of this procedure So far, Peral has not paid a single euro to the victim’s family. Albert López made available his flat in Badalona, ??which will be auctioned in the coming months and the entire proceeds of which will go to the victim’s relatives.
The ex-agent also admitted that he was aware that when he gave the house to his father it was seized to face the possible civil liabilities arising from the conviction.
His father, Francisco Peral, who expressed himself in the same terms and argued that he agreed to take over half of the house to pay his daughter’s mortgage, also testified as investigated. The statement of both lasted just ten minutes and both of them limited themselves to answering the questions of their lawyer, Núria González.
Judge Sonia Zapater, head of Tarragona District Court 5, aware of the media case in hand, took great precautions to prevent Rosa Peral’s statement from being leaked to the media. He expressly warned the lawyers to refrain from making statements and that if information about the content of the statement was disseminated, he would open an investigation for disclosure of secrets. The attempts to bunker Peral’s appearance reached such a point that the judge moved the interrogation to a small room, different from that of her court, and gave the order that it should not be recorded on audio or video and that in his defect was transcribed.
Rosa Peral was led by the Mossos d’Esquadra from the Tarragona prison to the headquarters of the Court and after giving the statement she returned to the penitentiary without the media being able to see her. On the other hand, his father was able to enter the building discreetly, but came out amid an avalanche of dei lamenting the interest. “This is a nightmare,” he said.
