The Spanish Royal Family has hit yet another rough spot, and this time, the blow is heavy and personal.
The King's daughter, Princess Cristina, will go on trial April 27 for potential involvement in a money-laundering and embezzling case with her husband, Inaki Urdangarin.
The former Olympic handball player and his royal wife were married in 1997. Three years later, Urdangarin retired, and became involved in Noos, a non-profit organization he co-directed from 2004-2006.
But since 2011, those do-good intentions have more than waned: documents have surfaced that call out both Urdangarin and PrincessCristina as money-hungry hoarders.
Financial details from the case include supposed tax evasion of over half a million euros through an NGO for kids with deathly illnesses, charges upwards of 700,000 euros for a soccer club stadium, and unbridled use of companies in the UK and Belize.
E-mails have also come out that show Princess Cristina knew at least a kernel of information about her husband's movements with money, putting her in an unattractive kind of limelight.
Urdangarin was said to have tried throwing the e-mails out of court, dashing them as invalid evidence.
The Palma de Mallorca courts, however, rejected his efforts.
Apparently, the royal family has steadily been distancing themselves from Undangarin, as they have found his behavior "less than exemplary," reports British news service The Independent.
They also suspended Undangarin from all royal events, took his profile off the royal website, and quietly removed his statue in Madrid's waxwork museum.
"This is the toughest blow the royal family has received within the last few years, or ever since I can remember," Jan Martinez Ahrens, deputy editor of Spain's El Pais newspaper, told the Associated Press.
Spanish royal spokespeople declined to comment, as did both PP and PSOE, (Spain's major political parties) representatives.
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