Rui Pinto admitted in court this Monday that he may have committed the crime of attempted extortion related to Doyen in the Football Leaks case, reiterating the lack of conscience and “youth” of his behaviour.
“I had not the right conscience, I never had the idea that it could be an extortion attempt. Today I recognize that the behavior I had can be framed in a crime of extortion in the form of an attempt. But at that time, I acted with the utmost naturalness,” said the creator of the electronic platform during the ongoing lawsuit at the Lisbon Central Criminal Court.
Rui Pinto continued to answer the jury’s questions, explaining that the email sent to Doyen’s CEO, in which he insisted that there would be a solution to the situation of disclosure of the investment fund’s documents through Football Leaks, “was a bluff, like so many others,” to pressure Doyen.
In light of the email Aníbal Pinto sent to Pedro Henriques (lawyer for Nélio Lucas) raising the possibility that a crime was involved, the young man confessed that he had no idea: “On a At some point the expression became blackmail or extortion, but at that time I was not aware of the meaning of extortion. There was a time, but I don’t remember whether it was before or after the meeting”.
However, Rui Pinto later tried to distance recognition of the possible occurrence of a crime from an allegedly effective practice of attempted extortion when he was confronted with Aníbal Pinto’s email to Pedro Henriques.
“The email says ‘it seems to be configurable’… From opinion to being, there is a great distance, it made perfect sense to discuss personally what was at stake,” he emphasized, without failing that the purpose of the meeting between Aníbal Pinto, Nélio Lucas and Pedro Henriques was to “create space for a later meeting” with the CEO of Doyen, but already with a “document that could protect the identity of Rui Pinto”.
Rui Pinto acknowledged that he was “flabbergasted” by some aspects reported during the trial regarding the extortion attempt, pointing out that “the disclosure of documents in Football Leaks could already be a crime” and even admitting that he was tempted to accept an agreement with Nelio Lucas.
“My behavior was unspeakable. I shook and even thought about accepting the deal with Nélio Lucas,” he said, although he had previously emphasized that he had not given Aníbal Pinto any guidance on how to draw up a contract with Doyen.
Rui Pinto, 33 years old, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of improper access, 14 of breach of correspondence, six of illegal access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the law firm PLMJ, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage of Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in attempted form. This latest crime concerns Doyen and also led to the indictment of lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been at large since August 7, 2020, “for his collaboration” with the Judicial Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but has been placed under witness protection at an undisclosed location and under police protection for security reasons. .
Source: DN
