In September 2019, the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) accused Rui Pinto of 147 crimes, 75 of which were for illegitimate access, 70 of which for violation of correspondence, seven of them aggravated, one of computer sabotage and one of attempted extortion, by accessing the computer systems of Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Football Federation and the Attorney General's Office, and the subsequent disclosure of dozens of confidential documents.

The defenses of Rui Pinto and his former lawyer, Aníbal Pinto, the latter accused of intermediating the attempted extortion of between €500,000 to €one million from the Doyen investment fund, requested the opening of the investigation, an optional phase in which a criminal investigation judge decides if the case proceeds and in what form for trial.

"Rui Pinto should not be brought to trial for 74 crimes, but only for six crimes, those relating to the offended Sporting Clube de Portugal, Doyen, PGR, FPF and 'score platform'," explained criminal investigation judge Cláudia Pina.

Regarding the remaining facts, the judge stressed that the accused must be brought to trial in accordance with the Prosecution's indictment.

Cláudia Pina scheduled the reading of the preliminary decision for Friday at 2pm, giving "forty-eight hours" for Rui Pinto's defence to comment on these changes.

Rui Pinto's defense requested the opening of an investigation with the sole purpose of reducing the 147 crimes to correct "legal aspects" such as the duplication of crimes.

The prosecutor's office says that between November 6, 2018 and January 7, 2019, the defendant hacked 307 times the Attorney General's Office, and obtained documents from the Tancos, BES and Operação Marquês cases, among others.

Between January 2018 and January 2019, Rui Pinto consulted 12 other cases that are still sub judice.

In custody since March 22 last year, Rui Pinto, 30, was arrested in Hungary and handed over to the Portuguese authorities on the basis of a European arrest warrant, which only covered illegal access to Sporting and Doyen's computer systems, but later extended at the request of the Portuguese authorities.

Rui Pinto is also suspected of being the author of the theft of Benfica's e-mails in 2017.

The prosecution maintains that from the beginning of 2015 until 16 January 2019, "the main defendant was provided with technical knowledge and adequate equipment that allowed him to access, in an unauthorised way, computer systems and third party e-mail boxes".

To that end, "he installed in his equipment various computer programs and digital tools that allowed him, in a disguised and anonymous way, to enter the said computer systems and mailboxes of third parties and to remove content from them".