After the report, Palomino issued a statement denying that the messages shown were sent from her cell phone. “It is false that I wrote or disseminated them.” She even stated that “in due time and before the competent authority, I will assert my rights against this offense that I will not tolerate.”
This is the report released in April by the Investigation Unit of El Comercio
Catherin Palomino, deputy of Juntos por el Perú (JP) for Huancavelica, has more than 60 visits to former president Pedro Castillo in the Barbadillo prison in Ate in just over a year and a half, from October 2024 to February 2026, several of them during working hours when she was working in Congress, according to what the Investigation Unit of El Comercio was able to verify.
Palomino Casavilca obtains more than 11 thousand votes, which virtually guarantees her a seat as a deputy in the next bicameral Congress 2026-2031. She is a Legislative worker and affiliated with the party Todo con el Pueblo – Pedro Castillo’s party – since July 2024 while working as an assistant to parliamentarian Alfredo Pariona (Socialist Bench), with a salary of S/.3039.
READ MORE: 2026 Elections: Roberto Sánchez insists on a new Constitution
As part of Pariona Sinche’s team, she records eight trips from Lima to Huancavelica. In March 2024, Palomino Casavilca was promoted: she became a technician and with that her salary also increased to more than S/ 7 thousand. She worked there until March 2025.
Since September last year, the virtual deputy was hired as a technician in the office of congresswoman Katy Ugarte (Juntos por el Perú – Voces del Pueblo – Bloque Magisterial) with a salary of S/7,319. She worked in that office until January 2026.
READ MORE: Jaime de Althaus: “We must agree in the name of future growth”
Catherin Palomino records a total of 61 visits to Pedro Castillo. The first took place on October 29, 2024, and according to the official document, that day she did so twice: first she appeared as “friend” (from 9:26 a.m. to 11:11 a.m.) and then as “lawyer” (from 11:12 a.m. to 11:25 a.m.).
The visits were repeated in the following months of 2025: April (1), May (4), June (4), July (7), and August (6). Although in September she started working in congresswoman Katy Ugarte’s office, that did not prevent her from visiting the former president (7 times).
READ MORE: Your flight could be delayed, a chronicle by Fernando Vivas about Balcázar and the crisis over the F-16 fighters
The striking thing is that several of those visits to Pedro Castillo coincide with her working hours and despite that, her salary was not deducted, according to the Transparency portal of Congress. On the matter, Catherin Palomino claimed that she requested leave in writing “by hours” and justified her visits in her capacity as national secretary of Youth of the party Todo con el Pueblo.
Read more The return of the MEF
“I have visited Pedro Castillo because in the towns I visit in Huancavelica they give me many gifts for him. I have requested leaves because I take the work issue very seriously, I have always tried not to affect my working hours. The leave requests were by hours”, she told this newspaper.
Regarding her first visit to the former president in prison, in October 2024, Palomino argued that the permission on that occasion was processed through congressman Alfredo Pariona. However, in conversation with El Comercio, the parliamentarian denied that version.
“I do not have that information, at no time have I authorized her to make that visit, unless I was on representation week, from outside, and without my knowledge (that) she went is different”, he emphasized. Asked if he ever authorized permits for his office workers to visit the former president, Pariona was emphatic: “At no time”. El Comercio also tried to contact congresswoman Katy Ugarte, but there was no response by the time of closing.
READ MORE: The JNE and the impact of its decision against the complementary elections
On her social media, the elected deputy posted images of her participation in a protest outside Barbadillo prison on November 27, the day Castillo Terrones was sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison for the coup d’état he perpetrated in December 2022. It was a normal working day.
Among her campaign proposals, the virtual deputy stated that she will seek the freedom of former president Pedro Castillo and the approval of a new Political Constitution.
Other visitors
Iber Maraví Olarte, former Minister of Labor in the Castillo Terrones government and who is poised to be a virtual senator of JP through the single electoral district modality, is the one with the highest number of visits: 340, since the second half of March 2023.
Another visitor who would also occupy a seat in the next Congress as a deputy for Cajamarca is Yenifer Paredes, sister-in-law of the coup former president, who records 27 visits until February 2026.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED: JEE rejects at least 24 nullity requests against the general elections: details of the cases and what comes next
It is expected that these three virtual parliamentarians, along with José Castillo, brother and virtual senator, will be the Juntos por el Perú bloc that fulfills what they have been promising throughout their entire electoral campaign: to use their seats in search of the freedom of Pedro Castillo, who was sentenced for the 2022 coup d’état.
Read more Dollar price in Peru today, Monday, August 10: what is the exchange rate of the day
