The accused, of 45 year old, was convicted of the crimes of qualified fraud, document forgery, and computer fraud, Defendant AntĂłnio Alexandre was sentenced to two years in prison suspended in his execution for the same period on condition that the Volunteer Firefighters of Odemira 5 years in prison, suspended for the same period.
Sergio Easter, was acquitted of another thirty-five crimes of the same type and also of the civil compensation claim filed by Banco Santander Totta (BST). Ten other defendants, 7 Individual people and three companies were acquitted of all crimes, while a defendant society saw the pronunciation declared null and void. The “Santander Case” was revealed by Lidador NotĂcias (LN) in May 2016.
A Panel of Judges from the Judicial Court of Beja condemned the former company manager of the Beja Agency of the BST identified as the mastermind of the scheme, for having obtained illegitimate financing from 862.000 thousand euros, with forged bank accounts, co-authored with two of the other four defendants who were sentenced to sentences between two years and months and four years and nine months, also suspended in its execution.
in the judgment, dated last day 26 January, to which LN had access, the magistrates considered it as proven that Easter, Antonio S. Rodrigues and Tiago Ribeiro “acted in collusion, executing a common plan that they drew up and in which they divided tasks, falsely creating before the BST the appearance of being legitimate sole proprietors”, justified.
For the application of the penalty to the former BST employee, the Collective of Judges highlighted its collaborative stance towards “the discovery of the truth”, which allowed the court, in the context of a non-substantial change in the facts “to be released into the records, a reality very different from that resulting from the accusation pronounced”, justifying that he “answered all the questions put to him”.
The facts occurred between 7 November 2014 and 10 February 2016, having in May of this last year, When the case was triggered, the suspect resigned. The first suspicion began with an operation on the mother's bank account, that according to the ruling “it was the manager herself, Cremilde Costa, who suggested that he create a credit operation that would be titled by the mother”, for the defendant to overcome the economic problems he faced.
Regarding the dismissal of Santander's civil compensation claim, who did not claim reputational damage or property losses resulting from the situation, the same resulted from the fact that the bank transmitted to third parties, the credits claimed in the case and the defendants could be asked twice to pay the same amounts.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
