STF: trial could lead to deputies being sentenced for the first time for corruption in amendments
This week, the Federal Supreme Court resumes the trial of the first corruption case for deviation of parliamentary amendments. The First Panel of the Court once again analyzes the case that could lead to the conviction of deputies Josimar Maranhãozinho (PL-MA), Gildenemyr de Lima Sousa (Pastor Gil) (PL-MA) and João Bosco da Costa (Bosco Costa) (PL-SE) for forming a criminal organization focused on the “commercialization of parliamentary amendments”.
The discussion of the case will begin on Tuesday, with the vote of minister Cristiano Zanin, rapporteur. Then, the other members of the collegiate spoke — Alexandre de Moraes, Cármen Lúcia and Flávio Dino. The latter, president of the First Panel, signaled that the trial should be concluded on Tuesday, including the possibility of the session extending into the early evening.
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The first sessions of the trial, held last week, were marked by demonstrations from the Attorney General’s Office and the defense of the accused. In oral argument, Deputy Attorney General Paulo Vasconcelos Jacobina defended a “firm punishment” for the parliamentarians due to the “high gravity of the conduct”.
The PGR representative highlighted, for example, that the activities of the investigated group were not restricted to the city hall of São José de Ribamar — the specific case under analysis. According to him, the “enticement and collection” of amounts to release amendments “in different municipalities” led to the opening of other investigations underway in the Court.
Dino took advantage of one of last week’s sessions to come to the court’s defense. When mentioning recent decisions on the need for transparency in the execution of parliamentary amendments, he stated that the STF “gets it wrong, but it gets much more right”. As Globo showed, it was already expected that, in the midst of the trial, members of the Court would hold public demonstrations in an attempt to alleviate the tension experienced by the court in recent weeks, especially given the new revelations about the Master Case scandal.
The expectation is that there will be new demonstrations in the same direction throughout Tuesday.
Complaint
According to the complaint, between January and August 2020, the deputies asked a mayor in the interior of Maranhão to pay R$1.7 million in bribes in return for forwarding around R$6.7 million in parliamentary amendments to the city. The PGR also accused crimes of five other defendants, including those responsible for charges and approaches with the aim of obtaining bribes.
Also according to the Federal Public Ministry, the criminal organization would be led by Josimar Maranhãozinho, a position that would be proven by exchanges of messages between him and the other accused deputies regarding the direction of amendments. In December 2019, for example, Pastor Gil consulted Josimar about which municipalities should receive amendments. “I gave 1,048,000 to São José de Ribamar”, was the answer.
In December 2021, Globo showed excerpts of videos recorded in a controlled action by the Federal Police in which deputy Josimar Maranhãozinho hands over a box of money to an ally. The images were taken as part of Operation Descalabro, within a second investigation in which Maranhãozinho is investigated, also for embezzlement of public resources.
