A lawyer for former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro Shayane "shAy" Victorio said his client's 116-year prison sentence for embezzlement is "inhuman and unjust" and will be appealed.
Antonio Carneiro, the attorney for shAy, spoke to ESPN Esports Brazil on Thursday about the criminal case conducted by the Public Ministry of the State of São Paulo, which also placed shAy's ex-husband Renato Savoia as a defendant. The lawsuit alleged that the two harmed 116 people through their online store, Megazine.net, by selling products that were not delivered to those that purchased them.
"To talk about fraud, there must be intent or will to harm, and my client had a logistics problem inside of the company," Carneiro said. "According to the case files, [the company] sold and delivered goods to thousands of customers."
According to the lawsuit filed against shAy, the accumulated amount is close to 50,000 Brazilian real ($10,000). Savoia also said that the customers have not been reimbursed previously because "the Public Ministry took over all the documentation, computers and customers list, and the company was unable to contact them."
"Shayene suffered a restriction of defense since the beginning of the process," her attorney added. "[The Public Ministry] forced interrogations without the presence of any defender and forced an understanding that there was a ghost company."
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The lawyer also said that the former player did not intend to harm her clients and, therefore, the sentence should be much lower than the 116 years in prison decreed by Judge Daniella Camberlingo Querobim.
"There was never a desire to harm third parties," Carneiro said, "so we will mention that even in a different understanding, the penalty could never exceed two years." If the 116-year sentence were to be exacted, shAy would serve a maximum of 30 years in prison, as Brazil only allows prisoners to stay in custody for that amount of time regardless of the crime or sentence.
In her judgment, Querobim said shAy must have been aware that her company didn't have the stock to fill the orders it took and admitted as much to Carneiro.
"Add to this the fact that Victim X stated that, after not receiving the merchandise acquired through the website Megazine.net, he contacted the company via telephone," the sentence, published by UOL, said. "A person named Shayene answered the call and informed that the truck that was delivering the goods had suffered an accident and the products were damaged. That is why they needed a new period of sixty days to carry out the delivery of the products. But they never got them.
"There is no doubt that the person who answered the call is the defendant, especially since it is an unusual name. It is noteworthy that several victims reported that, when they contacted the company, they received similar reasons to the one narrated by Victim X. However, none of them were successful in receiving the products or obtaining the reimbursement."
ShAy was a professional esports player for 11 years, having played Counter-Strike 1.6 between 2008 and 2011 and CS:GO between 2013 and 2019. She has worked with household names in Brazil like MIBR, ProGaming, paiN, Santos Dexterity, Bootkamp and Vivo Keyd, the last team she represented before retiring from the competitive scene in May 2019.
The former pro issued a statement about the lawsuit on her Instagram earlier this week.
"I am not arrested ,and I will not be arrested," she said. "I am not even wanted like people are saying. It is a lawsuit of a problem that my ex 'husband' had and it harmed me. The time we split up, he took 100% responsibility."