Congresswoman Cristina Rodrigues acquitted in PAN “computer blackout” case

Chega MP Cristina Rodrigues was acquitted today in the case in which she was accused of a "computer blackout" of PAN emails when she was a member of that party.

The court found that the two crimes of damage and unlawful access that Cristina Rodrigues was accused of by the Public Prosecutor's Office were not proven.

In addition to Cristina Rodrigues, this trial included another defendant, Sara Fernandes, a former PAN employee, who was accused by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the crime of causing damage to computer programs or other data, co-authored with the current Chega member of parliament. Sara Fernandes was also acquitted.

The court “understands that the evidence produced was not sufficient to show that they acted in the manner described in the accusation,” said the judge responsible for the case.

At issue in this case is a "computer blackout" of PAN leaders' emails in 2020, when Cristina Rodrigues was still a member of the party. The Public Prosecutor's Office found that "the defendants acted deliberately, freely, and consciously, in accordance with a previously drawn up plan, with the aim of preventing PAN and its members from accessing the content of the party's emails," the indictment states.

"The defendants removed thousands of emails from the aforementioned mailbox, which they knew they did not have authorization to do. The defendants aimed to—and succeeded in—preventing the PAN party from continuing its political activity," the ruling reads.

In its closing arguments, the Public Prosecutor's Office did not request a specific sentence, considering that "it is not credible that someone would disaffiliate at 10:00 a.m. one day and then be making changes to a file at 4:00 p.m. the previous day."

The MP argued that it was enough to use “some common sense” to “conclude, without great leaps of reasoning, that there was a massive change of directories and then a delete operation”.

In the first session of this trial, Cristina Rodrigues denied the facts contained in the Public Prosecutor's Office's accusation: "For now, I can only say that I reject the facts that have been attributed to me."