A verdict in the Pedro Gomes case
In early 2014 we wrote a story about betrayal and broken friendships in Portugal and on July 5, 2016 a criminal court in Lisbon handed down a verdict in the Pedro Gomes credit card theft case. Gomes, who is a professional triathlete and whose full legal name is Pedro Marco Ribeiro Gomes, was accused in 2014 of having charged about 10,000 Euros to the credit card of a friend and fellow triathlete – over a span of several months, but some of our readers and friends of the accused felt this was simply hearsay or bad blood. The case was back then already submitted to the Portuguese legal system but it took the court until this summer to come to a verdict.
Pedro Gomes was not present when the verdict was announced. He was found guilty of intentional computer and wire fraud and intentional document falsification. Gomes was acquitted of the crime of on-going theft, the crime of on-going abuse of a credit card and the crime of on-going document falsification. He was subsequently sentenced to a 1,500 Euro fine or spend 166 days in prison. Gomes had repaid the victim, Sergio Costa, the money he had charged to his card before his trial.
Included in the 22-page court document was a list of all the credit card charges that Pedro Gomes made with the card of Costa, and that list alone spans over 5 pages and lists 41 separate charges. A snapshot of which can be seen below.
The full court document can be found here.
In the initial report we identified the victim as Sergio Silva, that however was not correct. The victim's name is Sergio Costa and we have amended accordingly.
