José María López, the contestant of the 18th edition of Big Brother who was accused of sexually abusing his partner during the contest, Carlota Prado, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison.

After a long legal battle that has lasted several years in which the defendant and the parties tried to reach a prior agreement without success, the Criminal Court number 18 of Madrid has sentenced José María López to fifteen months in prison for a crime of sexual abuse against Carlota Prado, in addition to forcing her to take another series of measures and to compensate her with 6,000 euros.

This event occurred in the early hours of November 4, 2017 at the Big Brother house, a Telecinco program that is recorded 24 hours a day and where no one came to help the victim. Since the incident took place, Mediaset has not reissued the program in its anonymous version.

The then happy couple had met on the Mediaset reality show and had been in a ‘sentimental relationship’ for just a few weeks. The events occurred after a party, when the victim had ingested alcohol. The management of ‘GH’, after reviewing the images (it was not clear due to the sheets) decided to expel José María López the next day and also take Carlota out of confinement, to provide her with psychological help.

From that moment on, both the program and the chain released statements to try to stop the wave of criticism that accused the Mediaset format and the space workers of not acting to save the victim.

During these 6 years, Carlota Prado herself has denounced that she experienced “absolute shame”, since the day after the events they put the images on her when she was alone and realized what the person had done to her. ‘that I loved him’. The young woman denounced the lack of action of the people who followed the minutes and the 24 hours, as well as the lack of protocol in the face of this very serious situation that she experienced firsthand.

In addition to the sentence of 15 months of deprivation of liberty, the Judge also imposes in the sentence four years of remoteness and solitary confinement from the victim and obliges him to compensate her with 6,000 euros as compensation for the non-material damage caused.

The entity Zeppelin Televisión S.A., the producer of the program where the events took place, must also respond to this amount, as subsidiary civil liability.