“Taking advantage of his position as a teacher and the influence he had over students, the defendant decided to exploit this situation,” states the indictment by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, accessed today by the Lusa agency.
The man, approximately 30 years old, allegedly used social media to initiate conversations with current or former students from the schools where he taught. Initially engaging them on everyday and school topics to gain their trust and ascendancy, he subsequently shifted the conversations to a sexual nature.
The teacher, who worked in music learning schools in the municipalities of Lourinhã, Óbidos, and Torres Vedras, faces charges of sexual abuse of children (3 counts), soliciting minors for prostitution (3 counts), sexual harassment (9 counts), and child pornography (6 counts), all aggravated, along with one count of luring a minor for sexual purposes.
The defendant also risks a supplementary penalty of prohibition from carrying out professional duties related to crimes against sexual self-determination and freedom.
In addition to sexual conversations, the defendant allegedly asked the youths to send intimate photos and videos.
The man reportedly met with one victim for sexual contact and to film the acts performed.
With other victims, he allegedly requested sexual photos and videos in exchange for money or “favors related to the subject he taught.”
In one instance, “he asked to send him photographs of themselves, promising in return a photograph of the assessment test.”
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, to “satisfy his libidinous urges,” the teacher “took advantage of the victims’ incapacity to assess the significance of those behaviors… and measure the consequences of such actions, incapacity due to age, which the defendant was aware of.”
The crimes were committed between December 2022 and mid-February 2025, with the youths being under the age of 16 at the time of the incidents.
The prosecution dismissed allegations related to four other youths.
The defendant was arrested in mid-February this year and is currently in preventive detention awaiting further developments in the judicial process.
The teacher has appealed the indictment, dated June 15, requesting the opening of an investigation, defending that there are no facts that could aggravate the criminal offenses charged against him.
The teacher-student relationship “occurred concerning one victim,” states the appeal by his lawyer, accessed by Lusa in the consultation of the judicial process.
“There is no evidence, not even indications,” of family relationship, cohabitation, guardianship, hierarchical, economic, or work dependence that could have been exploited for the crime, nor is the victim vulnerable by age, disability, illness, or pregnancy, the defense argued.
Arguing that there is no aggravation of the crimes, that the defendant has no criminal record, and that he cooperated with the investigation, the lawyer requested the opening of an investigation to alter the legal classification of the facts and, consequently, to declare the process null.
Alternatively, he requested a possible provisional suspension of the process during the investigatory phase, to avoid trial, until the victims or their legal representatives are heard.
