Two females and a male are on trial for allegedly taking one hundred and forty thousand Euros and a portion of all real estate belonging to an octogenarian woman suffering from a psychiatric degenerative disease.


The crimes on trial are those of qualified theft and fraud, as a result of the accused having had received disproportionate payments for alleged services to the elderly woman.


The alleged victim is believed to have not been in the possession of her full mental capabilities at the time that these payments or donations were incurred, and the prosecution believes them to be the result of a fraudulent scheme.


There were also payments and hefty cash withdrawals made from the senior’s account, thought to have been suspicious.


On making the decision of allowing the case to reach the courts, as in accordance with Portuguese law, the judge responsible for the hearing said that ‘it is strongly shown that the defendants must have taken advantage of the situation and mental debility of the offended – who was a widow living alone – so they could profit at the expense of her possessions’.


The process was triggered by the niece of the alleged victim, who found it strange that the senior citizen was going through financial difficulties, considering her considerable patrimony.