The lawyers of PLMJ heard this Thursday afternoon at the 16th session of the ‘Football Leaks’ trial, emphasizing the impact caused by the intrusion allegedly made by the platform’s creator, Rui Pinto, into the office’s computer system.
João Carminho, José Formosinho Sanchez and Sara Estima Martins were witnesses at the ongoing trial at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon and joined in condemning the breach of professional secrecy that they were required as lawyers, in addition to admitting, to varying degrees, the negative effects on your activity and on a personal level.
“I had insomnia every night wondering if they were going to divulge [documentos do meu computador] or not. It was something that made me very concerned, because it was not just my documents, they were also related to family members and clients “, said José Formosinho Sánchez, pointing out:” The impact was great and I spent weeks seeing what was removed and what consequences it could have. We spent many hours trying to understand the content that had been copied ”.
Having worked at PLMJ since 2011, the lawyer confessed that he only had professional e-mail and that this e-mail account had “all his life” stored there, creating a feeling of “concern” that went on for several weeks. According to José Formosinho Sanchez, the documents on his computer were not just about football.
Sara Estima Martins, who has been part of that company for 14 years, considered that there had been a “very big impact” when it was discovered that there had been illegitimate access to the office’s computer system and the subsequent disclosure of lawyers’ documents on the Internet, which she reiterated to be “All confidential” and “covered by professional secrecy”.
“Professional secrecy is the most important thing for a lawyer and interference is the worst that can happen. There was fear, concern, insecurity and it caused a lot of inconvenience. This is something that impacts on a lawyer’s own reputation, even if he is not responsible. There is a fear of what may happen and this ends up changing a person ”, he stressed.
Finally, João Carminho, who at the time of Rui Pinto’s alleged intrusion into the system – between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 – was only a trainee lawyer, said that his email was then “disabled for security reasons”.
However, despite the withdrawal of access to email and the fixed computer he had in the office, he guaranteed that he never felt “a target” by other colleagues and that he was never accused of anything.
“It created a general malaise, no one really knew what was going on. I was amazed ”, confessed João Carminho, who had as a ‘patron’ lawyer João Medeiros, one of those responsible for the defense of Benfica’s SAD in the E-Toupeira case and who saw his email inbox on the blog ‘Mercado de Benfica’ ‘.
“Nobody ever explained to me how the access was made,” he added.
The trial of the ‘Football Leaks’ case will now continue next Tuesday with the hearing of more witnesses related to access to the PLMJ computer system.
Rui Pinto, 31, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and was also what led to the pronunciation of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, “due to his collaboration” with the Judiciary Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, inserted in the protection program of witnesses in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
