'Prestigious' Rector gets suspended sentence for €2 million fiddle

The Rector of Porto's Fernando Pessoa University has been found guilty of fiddling €2 million but has received a suspended prison sentence - it seems he is quite posh and well-connected.
 

Salvato Trigo received a one year and three months sentence for ‘diverting’ more than €2 million from the private University for his own benefit and that of his family. 

 

The trial started in October 2017 and took place behind closed doors because he is very important and if his good name became besmirched, should the public get to hear or read the evidence against him, this could be awfully inconvenient.

 

In addition to the ‘gentleman’s sentence,’ meaning he will spend no time in prison if he pays a fine, the court decided to oblige Erasmo -  a company owned by Salvato Trigo and his family - to pay almost €2.2 million to the State, a figure corresponding to amount he ‘diverted’ when in his position of trust.

 

Trigo bought a property which he leased back to the University at €40,000 a month, even though the University had €8 million in the bank and could have bought the property outright.

 

Trigo’s company Erasmus bought the house and he then organised that the University, where he was Rector, paid €584,000 for works to repair the old building and adapt it to house the Postgraduate School. During the building works, although "the property was not fit to be used", the University was paying €40,000 in monthly rent to Trigo’s family company.

 

In 2007 alone, Erasmo’s income was over €1 million due to this house fiddle, “a rate of return of about 71% in the first year," heard the nearly empty court.

 

The lease contract was made for 10 years and, by the time Trigo was investigated and charged with misusing University funds for personal gain, by June 2016 the University already had shelled out payments of €4.6 million to Erasmus for a property that had cost €1.4 million.

 

The Rector did not stop there as the two bar-canteens in the University also provided rich pickings with Erasmo managing to rent out the spaces despite their being on University ground – another €50,000-a-year.

 

Trigo was keen to avoid publicity, now we see why. At the start of the trial, Trigo’s lawyers claimed that their client is "a personality of recognised merit and prestige in the national and international university environment" and that, therefore, the accusation levelled against him is "detrimental to his professional and personal honour as well as his good name."
 
The lawyer, laughably, claimed that, "the facts submitted to court may have obvious media repercussions, which will necessarily have a detrimental effect on the normal functioning of the Fernando Pessoa University and the school hospital."
 
The judge did decided to exclude the press and members of the public during the trial but now it’s over – Trigo’s name is mud and he is unlikely to work in education again in this lifetime.