Rui Pinto sentenced to six months in prison with suspended sentence for illegally accessing PSG emails – Portugal

Rui Pinto, the Portuguese man behind the Football Leaks case, was sentenced this Wednesday to six months in prison, with a suspended sentence, by the Paris Judicial Court, for illegally accessing Paris Saint-Germain emails.

The judge agreed with the sentence requested by the French Public Prosecutor’s Office, during a preliminary hearing to admit guilt, which was also accepted by Rui Pinto, 35, responsible for the disclosure of private information that shook the foundations of world football.

“I accept the facts of which I am accused. I find no reason to prolong the trial any longer. I have already been involved in judicial bureaucracy in Portugal for five years for facts that may be similar to those for which I am here”, said the Portuguese, in court.

Rui Pinto was convicted of illegally accessing and extracting data from the email boxes of PSG’s financial director, the deputy general director and a management assistant of the two-time French champion, between 2015 and 2019, from France, Portugal and Hungary.

In addition to the suspended prison sentence, Rui Pinto was also sentenced to the symbolic payment of one euro in compensation to the club in which Portuguese international footballers Nuno Mendes, Danilo, Vitinha and Gonçalo Ramos play.

Rui Pinto was sentenced to four years in prison, with a suspended sentence, in the trial of the Football Leaks case, whose ruling was read on September 11, at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.

The main defendant in the case was convicted of committing one crime of attempted extortion, three of aggravated violation of correspondence and five of illegitimate access, the remainder falling due to the application of the amnesty law approved under the Pope’s visit to Portugal and by lack of evidence.