The Supreme Court of Justice (STJ), in a ruling dated the 9th and obtained today, rejected an appeal filed in March by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The appeal contested the existing sentence on grounds of “manifest disproportion with the very reasons for sentencing” and sought “a single sentence not less than 12 years.”
The STJ, in its decision, which included a dissenting opinion from one of the three judges, upheld a single sentence of 11 years of imprisonment for the 48-year-old man. The court deemed the appropriate sentence to be a single term of nine years, considering “the most recent jurisprudence.”
The Viana do Castelo court had previously convicted the mathematics tutor for committing, from January 2023 to January 2024, 19 counts of sexual abuse of a minor. The victim was 13 years old at the time, and the crimes resulted in separate sentences ranging from one year to eight years of imprisonment, with specific sentences of one year and six months for each crime.
Additionally, the man was found guilty of 18 counts of child sexual abuse, with sentences ranging from three to 10 years, receiving three years and six months for each incident.
He was also convicted of 23 counts of sexual abuse of dependent minors, receiving sentences between one and eight years, specifically one year and eight months for each charge.
“The esteemed judgment under appeal does not warrant any criticism or reproach, as it did not violate any legal provisions […] of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP), given its reasoning. The specific sentences applied were fair and appropriate, as was the single applicable sentence,” emphasized the STJ.
In April 2018, the defendant was sentenced to five years of imprisonment, suspended for the same period, which was completed on May 21, 2023.
At that time, he was accused of 82 counts of child sexual abuse and six acts of sexual conduct with adolescents, involving 11 minors.
In addition to these cases involving the mathematics tutor, more allegations are currently under investigation based on “facts reported in July 2024” by four other minors whom the defendant also tutored.
