Sentenced to 7 years for cyberbullying, woman accumulates seven new victims during trial
Sofia, a pseudonym, was sentenced in 2025 to seven years and nine months in prison for online harassment. Nevertheless, she continued to victimise people — the new investigation has seven direct victims and dozens of indirect ones.
Cyber-harassment did not stop with the sentence: new investigation identifies seven victims
Sofia — a pseudonym — was sentenced in April 2025 to seven years and nine months in prison for cyberbullying, in a case that began in 2019. Nevertheless, according to CNN Portugal, the online harassment does not appear to have ceased: during the trial itself and after the sentencing, Sofia is reported to have victimised new people. A new investigation, opened in 2023, points to seven direct victims and dozens of indirect victims.
On 24 September 2026, the Constitutional Court rejected Sofia's appeal — her last attempt to remain free. After appealing to the Lisbon Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court, and filing complaints each time decisions went against her, the path to prison now appears to have no way out. The case is to be referred to the Court of Appeal and from there sent to the first instance for execution of the sentence.
False death and accusations of high-end prostitution
In the new investigation, the father of one of the victims described to CNN Portugal the ordeal experienced by the family since 2023. It all began with an anonymous text message sent to a group of university students, of which one of his daughters was a member. This was followed by increasingly frequent emails, directed at schools, universities, institutions and people close to them — including state entities.
Sofia is reported to have circulated the false news of the young woman's death, leading friends and acquaintances to believe that she had died. She also communicated anonymously to official entities in other countries the alleged disappearance of the young woman abroad. In parallel, she shared manipulated pornographic photographs, insinuated that the daughter "engaged in high-end prostitution" and accused the family of tax evasion and illegal exports — crimes which the father insists "never happened".
The two daughters stopped posting on social media. "Every photograph or location could fuel a new wave of messages," the father explained. The family was forced to seek psychological and psychiatric support. "At home, every notification on the mobile phone could be yet more bad news," he admitted.
In 2023, the family delivered the evidence to the Public Prosecutor's Office with support from lawyers. The desire is clear: "That justice act with the speed that three years of suffering demand, that it put an end once and for all to this harassment and that the harm caused be repaired."
More than a decade of cyberbullying
CNN Portugal found that this is not a recent phenomenon. Before the 2019 case that led to the conviction, there was already an investigation in 2015, which was subsequently closed. For more than ten years Sofia appears to have dedicated herself to tormenting people using the anonymity provided by computer and the Internet, according to accounts from those who have followed the case legally.
The Office of the Attorney General confirmed that "the investigation with the NUIPC reference mentioned is under investigation, with seven victims identified" and that "it is subject to external legal confidentiality".
Victim's lawyer: "The Internet is not a safe haven for crime"
David Silva Ramalho, lawyer for the victim in the case that led to the conviction, recalls that six years ago, "the defendant freely practised her crimes, every day, attacking various people indiscriminately, still under the comfort of the anonymity that the computer and Internet gave her".
"Since then, and at great cost, the defendant has been identified, accused, indicted, convicted, and now, after four appeals, an expert opinion request and three complaints, she will finally serve the sentence imposed on her," he told CNN Portugal.
Ramalho considered the final conviction important for three reasons: the defendant will "answer for the great harm she has done to her victims"; the decision "sends the message that the Internet is not a safe haven for crime and that sooner or later anonymity ends"; and "it serves as encouragement for victims of identical crimes to report them".
The lawyer, together with colleague Adriana Brás, also represents some of the victims in the new 2023 investigation, in which Sofia again appears as a suspect. "I am sorry that the outcome did not come sooner, but I am satisfied that it has finally come," he stated.
Defence guarantees voluntary surrender
Sofia's lawyer told Correio da Manhã that his client will enter prison of her own accord before the final deadline. "She wants to close this chapter," he said.
Despite the imminent execution of the sentence, it is the victims who, for now, remain imprisoned in a permanent state of fear. Portuguese justice had never previously determined such a high sentence for the crime of cyberbullying — and yet the harassment did not stop.
Source: CNN Portugal