Vortex: Reading the judgment scheduled for December after 4 postponements

O Feira Court scheduled for December 21 the reading of the judgment of the Vortex case, related to corruption in the Chamber of Espinho involving two former mayors, after four postponements.

In an order dated 26 October and consulted today by Lusa, the judge president of the collective who judged the case, Carlos Azevedo, designates December 21 at 10:30 p.m., to continue hearing with predictable reading of judgment.

The session was scheduled for 20 March, 17 April, 22 May and 4 September, but was always postponed.

In the case of the last date, the postponement was due to the fact that the court notified the procedural subjects of a non-substantial change in the facts and that they were granted a period for the exercise of contradictory.

The Vortex case, which began to be tried on 5 September 2024 at the Espinho Court, is centred on “real estate projects and their licensing relating to multi-family buildings and hotel units involving urban interests of tens of millions of euros, processed for the benefit of certain economic operators”.

These are acts of corruption allegedly committed by two former presidents of the Chamber of Espinho, Miguel Reis and Pinto Moreira, in a process that has six more individual defendants and five companies, related to real estate projects and urban licensing.

The operation culminated on January 10, 2023 with the arrest of the then mayor, Miguel Reis, the head of the Division of Urbanism and Environment of that municipality, an architect and two entrepreneurs for suspicion of active and passive corruption, prevarication, abuse of powers and traffic of influences.

On 10 July of the same year, the Public Prosecutor (MP) would deduct charge against eight defendants and five companies, including the then deputy of PSD Pinto Moreira, who was Miguel Reis' predecessor in the municipality.

Miguel Reis is accused of four crimes of passive corruption and five of prevarication, while Pinto Moreira accounts for two crimes of passive corruption, one of influence trafficking and the other of violation of urban rules.

In the final allegations, the MP asked for the conviction of the two former autarchs to be sentenced between the five and nine years in prison.

The businessman Francisco Pessegueiro, for whom the MP requested a sentence between the three and seven years in prison, is accused of eight crimes of active corruption, one of influence trafficking, five of prevarication and two crimes of violation of urban rules.

Miguel Reis and Francisco Pessegueiro came into protective custody, but were, in the meantime, released.