Joe Berardo:  doctor under suspicion for signing ‘cognitive deficit’ chit

After the mutterings of suspicion when defence lawyers cited that former BES boss Ricardo Salgado couldn’t answer criminal charges because he has since developed Alzheimer’s disease, news has come of a director of psychiatry at the IPO cancer hospital in Lisbon suspected of signing a chit to suggest former art supremo José Joe Berardo has ‘cognitive deficit’. Any form of cognitive deficit would certainly help Mr Berardo when his day in court comes – for alleged “aggravated fraud, tax fraud and money-laundering. For now, Lúcia Monteiro has simply been made an ‘official suspect’ (arguida) in a case for making a false declaration, while correspondence between her and Mr Berardo’s lawyers has also been apprehended.