The former president of the Raríssimas association Paula Brito da Costa was sentenced today to a suspended sentence of two years in prison and compensation of around 12,800 euros, accused of using the association’s assets for her own benefit.
Paula Brito da Costa’s lawyer, Pedro Duro, told Lusa that the court did not prove the crime of falsifying a document of which she was accused, but sentenced her for part of the facts relating to the crime of abuse of trust, which culminated in a suspended sentence of two years in prison and compensation to the Raríssimas association of around 12,800 euros.
The amount, the lawyer explained, refers to the total that the court considered proven to have been illegitimately appropriated by Paula Brito da Costa, with the prosecution accusing the association’s former leader of illegitimately appropriating 102 thousand euros.
“In due course, it will be assessed whether it makes sense to appeal, since there is a huge difference between the scandal created around the case, between what was then the accusation and what ended up being the conviction,” said Pedro Duro.
The defendant, the Raríssimas association and the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) have until the end of April to appeal the decision taken today by a collective court in Lisbon’s Central Criminal Court.
The former president of the Raríssimas association, Paula Brito da Costa, was charged by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in February 2023 with abuse of trust and falsifying documents, having been accused of misappropriating more than 100,000 euros from the institution.
The investigation, led by the Lisbon Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP), concluded that “the value of the goods and services obtained and the amounts received by way of subsistence allowance/expense reimbursement amounted to an illegitimate benefit of 102,663.54 euros, to the detriment of the IPSS [Private Social Solidarity Institution]”.
According to the indictment, the former president of Raríssimas, Paula Brito da Costa, “at the time of the facts” was responsible for “the day-to-day management of the association’s assets” and “used the association’s financial resources as if they were her own and for her own personal benefit”, which, says the MP, “resulted in three separate acts of conduct”.
Raríssimas – the National Association for Rare Mental Disabilities, was founded in April 2002 and aims to support people with rare diseases. In December 2017, a TVI report exposed irregularities in the association’s management.
The scandal led to the resignation of the then Secretary of State for Health, Manuel Delgado, and the removal of the association’s then president, Paula Brito e Costa.
