The judgment, dated April 2 and reviewed today, dismissed the appeal by the Public Prosecution Service, upholding the decision of the Feira Court, which acquitted the four defendants, including former Espinho City Councilor Quirino de Jesus, of charges of malfeasance and aggravated document falsification or forgery.
The case also involved a former technician from the Municipal Works Division, as well as a tapestry company that applied for parking spaces, and its representative.
The judges concluded, consistent with the initial ruling, that there was no intent to favor the defendant company, stating that the issue was due to “internal disorganization within the municipal services, which handled the process related to the requests from the defendant company in an unclear and non-compliant manner, resulting in excessive delays.”
The events took place between 2015 and 2020, during the tenure of Pinto Moreira (PSD) as the head of the executive of the municipality in the district of Aveiro.
The case concerned the allocation of two public parking spaces to the defendant company, without full payment of the fees owed, totaling over 10,000 euros, from 2015 to 2020.
During the trial, the former councilor denied the charges, while acknowledging irregularities, asserting that the spaces were allocated before he granted approval, which he attributed to “some procedural inconsistency.”
The Public Prosecution Service alleged that the former councilor and a technician from the Municipal Works Division, in collusion with the company representative, “instructed and decided in favor of this company, a request for the occupation of public parking spaces, without full payment of the fees owed.”
According to the investigation’s thesis, the defendants allegedly falsified the procedure as if only one space had been requested and authorized for a limited period, while knowing that it involved the occupation of two spaces for 24 hours.
Through this conduct, the company and its representative allegedly illicitly benefited from a total amount of 10,867.10 euros in unpaid fees between 2015 and 2020.
