Deltan’s executioner at the TSE was the target of an accusation in Lava Jato – 05/18/2023 – Politics

The Minister of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) Benedito Gonçalves, responsible for justifying the decision that revoked the mandate of deputy of former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos-PR), has a history of problems with Lava Jato —operation that had the parliamentarian as one of its symbols.

Benedito, rapporteur for Deltan’s impeachment request and also a minister of the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), became the target of the operation due to his relations with the former president of the construction company OAS Léo Pinheiro.

Even before the ratification of Léo Pinheiro’s accusation, in 2019, an investigation procedure was opened on the minister, but the then Attorney General of the Republic Raquel Dodge asked for it to be archived due to the extinction of punishment and prescription, according to the Sheet found out.

The magistrate even had a request for measures against him at the CNJ (National Council of Justice) in 2015, which was also filed the following year.

Other mentions of members of higher courts and the brother of STF (Supreme Federal Court) Minister Dias Toffoli were filed by Minister Edson Fachin, also at the request of Raquel Dodge. In these cases, no inquiry was opened.

wanted by Sheet through the advice of the STJ and the TSE since Wednesday (17), Benedito Gonçalves has not manifested itself.

When negotiating a plea agreement, Léo Pinheiro stated that he met the minister in 2013 and that he met with him to discuss judicial disputes involving the construction company at the STJ; and that until the beginning of 2014 Benedito judged favorably in two cases that the company was pleading.

He said that there were requests from Benedito for support for his candidacy for STF minister, who at the time had a vacant seat.

“At the time, the minister sought to gather support in the business environment for his candidacy for the STF and, during our meetings, we exchanged some impressions on the paths he should follow in his candidacy”, said Léo Pinheiro in the report.

In messages, according to the former president of OAS, Benedito asked him for “commitment and dedication” to his “project”; and in meetings he requested that Léo Pinheiro speak with politicians with whom he had a relationship.

In a certain part of the report, the contractor stated that in 2014 the construction company hired the notary where a son of the magistrate worked in Rio de Janeiro, for authentication and signature recognition services, with monthly payments from OAS of R$ 5,000 to R$ 7,000 .

He also stated that the minister asked him to assist his wife, who is a lawyer and wanted to offer professional services to the construction company. The hiring did not materialize, according to the whistleblower, who also mentioned a request for tickets for the 2014 World Cup final – which was not met.

The proposal for a delation in which the report on the TSE minister was shared between prosecutors of the Federal Public Ministry of Lava Jato in the Telegram application.

The messages and files like the one in this denunciation, to which the Sheet had access, were obtained by The Intercept Brasil website in 2019.

Delation is a means of obtaining evidence that, under current legislation, cannot, in isolation, support judgments without other information corroborating the statements made.

In the investigation that arrested Léo Pinheiro in 2014, the Lava Jato team intercepted cell phone messages in which he asked Minister Benedito if he would go to Minister Dias Toffoli’s birthday. In the conversation, they also arranged to meet in Rio.

The report analyzing the messages made by the Federal Police said that “Léo Pinheiro maintained frequent contacts with Minister Benedito Gonçalves, to the point that he requested assistance for his son, with Léo Pinheiro having assigned OAS lawyer Bruno Brasil to this task” .

The revelation of these conversations, in a report by Veja magazine in 2015, caused embarrassment to the current TSE minister. Leaders of opposition parties at the time, such as PPS, DEM and PSDB, demanded public explanations from Benedito and Toffoli about the relationship with the contractor.

“It puts judgments in the courts under suspicion”, said then-federal deputy Rubens Bueno (Cidadania-PR).

Léo Pinheiro signed a collaboration agreement after being, in all, more than three years imprisoned in a closed regime in Paraná.

In the negotiation phase of the agreement, Lava Jato attorneys in Curitiba exchanged messages through the Telegram application, seeing with reservations the contractor’s statements in his collaboration.

The reports presented by the contractor underwent several changes until the attorneys agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement with the lawyers, an essential step for the negotiations to move forward.

“At the last meeting we said they would need better[ar] the annexes considerably,” attorney Roberson Pozzobon told his colleagues in July 2016.

The contractor was one of the main accusers of President Lula (PT) in the process that led the PT to prison in 2018, in the case of the triplex in Guarujá (SP).

Léo Pinheiro was arrested for the first time in November 2014, in one of the most massive phases of Lava Jato, which targeted a series of construction companies doing business with Petrobras. At the time, the head of the task force of prosecutors in Curitiba was Deltan Dallagnol.

There were no formal public accusations against Benedito as a result of the Lava Jato investigations. He also reports the main lawsuit at the TSE against former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), which could cause the former president’s ineligibility.