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The São João Novo criminal court in Porto sentenced a former finance chief in Vila Nova de Gaia to six years in prison for accepting bribes to pay off the tax debts of two dozen defendants in the process.
The court showed that the man committed 16 crimes of passive corruption, two of improper receipt of advantage, three of falsification of documents, two of violation of secrecy, one of influence peddling and three of abuse of power, according to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office. from Porto
The man was sentenced to an accessory sentence that prohibits the exercise of functions for five years.
According to the source, the court declared that the amount of 118,658.46 euros was lost in favor of the State, in relation to this tax technician, “because it corresponds to inconsistent assets”, that is, “that can only be explained in the practice of activities criminal “.
The amount of 109,922.04 euros was also declared lost in favor of the State, in relation to one of the 21 remaining defendants in the process.
All these defendants, 14 people and seven companies, were convicted of the crime of passive corruption and two of them also for the crime of receiving an improper advantage.
The individual defendants were sentenced to suspended prison terms ranging from one and a half to three years.
Regarding legal entities, six were sentenced to a fine of € 20,000 and one to a fine of € 36,000.
The sentence is still subject to appeal.
The court demonstrated that the main defendant, who served as head of the Finance service in Vila Nova de Gaia from 2015 to 2018, received money or other compensation to favor taxpayers in this process, “accessing, when necessary, systems computer scientists with the credentials assigned to them superiorly “.
In addition to the money, he received compensation such as tickets to a sports event, wine, tires, and benefited from free lunches.
In the first trial session, in November 2019, the former finance chief in Vila Nova de Gaia rejected the prosecutor’s accusations that he was given “gloves” to resolve the tax debts.
“I did not receive any money from the people named in the lawsuit,” he said in an initial statement, repeating it when asked about the details of the accusation.
The scheme that led to this process was dismantled in April 2018 by the Northern Directorate of the Judicial Police.
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