Deputy who groped Isa Penna is notified after 5 months – 01/20/2023 – Power

State deputy Fernando Cury (União Brasil) presented his prior defense on the 9th in the lawsuit in which he is accused of sexual harassment against fellow state deputy Isa Penna (PC do B), after five months of attempts by the Justice of São Paulo Paul to find him.

The tour of justice officials looking for the deputy began in July, extended unsuccessfully throughout the entire election campaign and was only ended on December 21, in a non-face-to-face way – he ended up being notified by WhatsApp message.

At 9:00 am on September 24, an officer arrived to wait for Cury in front of a bakery, on an avenue in Botucatu (SP), where there would be a motorcade of the deputy. The writ of summons, with the label “urgent – ​​on duty”, was issued the day before, shortly after Isa’s defense pointed out to Justice the time and place of the campaign action.

The route and time of the motorcade had already been informed by Cury’s campaign to the Military Police in advance, but the event did not take place. Officer Marcelo Furtado said he had asked a group of uniformed election officials, who informed him that the motorcade had been cancelled.

The officer also went to Cury’s office and committee, spoke to his employees, who did not indicate his whereabouts. Furtado called the deputy and left messages on WhatsApp, with no response.

“Today I spent the whole day walking through the Cohab 4, Jardim Brasil and Jardim Ciranda neighborhoods in Botucatu”, posted Cury that day, with photos in which he appears next to a group of election officials with uniform and flag.

Cury’s campaign was mostly paid for with public money — BRL 758,000 invested by União Brasil, BRL 14,000 of donations and BRL 121,000 paid by the deputy. He was not re-elected.

Two years ago, on December 16, 2020, Cury was caught by the cameras of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo groping the side of Isa’s body during a plenary session. He was removed from office for six months and was expelled from his party at the time, Cidadania. THE Sheet was unable to contact the deputy.

On December 15, 2021, the Special Body of the Court of Justice of São Paulo unanimously accepted the complaint against Cury, but the process has made little progress since then.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo even pointed out that the deputy was hiding so as not to receive the notification, which stopped the progress of the action.

“The defendant, since the beginning of the investigation, has been adopting a posture that appears to be procrastinating,” wrote prosecutor Mario Antonio de Campos Tebet on November 1.

The rapporteur of the action, Judge Fábio Gouvêa, pointed out “strong indications that the complainant is hiding to avoid citation, mainly considering the unequivocal knowledge of the accused about the existence of the process and the fact that he is a public person, occupying a position of state representative”.

In November, Gouvêa determined the citation by the right time, that is, the notification would be delivered to anyone at the deputy’s address or office and would be fulfilled — the five-day period for presenting the defense would begin to run.

A court official went to the office in December and did not find the deputy, but Cury contacted her via WhatsApp arranging a meeting on the 21st to carry out the order. On the day, however, he warned that he would no longer be going to São Paulo and asked if the quote could be made via WhatsApp, which happened.

This was the second telenovela of Justiça in search of Cury. The notification for him to respond to the offer of the complaint was delivered in October 2021, after attempts that began in April of that year.

Isa ran for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, but was not elected either. She also changed parties – left the PSOL.

“I went into depression, which doesn’t mean I’m weak to face the process. I’m going to the end”, said the deputy to Sheet. “I’m really hurt even with this situation. It’s a humiliation. One more, in addition to his non-cassation. The reality of misogyny in spaces of power is structural.”

Isa claims that “working with politics has become a trigger”, that she avoids Alesp and feels dizzy when she is on her way to the House. “My choice to run for [deputada] federal had to do with not finding Cury.”

She reports that her feeling of not being elected was more of relief than sadness and that she missed numerous campaign agendas because of depression.

According to Isa, the feminist agenda is not of interest to many politicians. “My campaign suffered a boycott within the left itself,” he says. The deputy claims not to know if she will return to politics, but intends to continue working in the fight for women and with art.

Now, with the previous defense presented, the action moves to the phase in which witnesses are heard. In the document, lawyer Ézeo Fusco Júnior, who represents Cury, lists 8 witnesses, including former president of the Assembly Cauê Macris (PSDB) and deputy Alex de Madureira (PL), in addition to an expert who analyzed the images.

On October 25, the deputy’s lawyer at the time, Roberto Delmanto Júnior, left the case.

Ézeo states in the piece that the case has to be sent to the first instance, since Cury was not re-elected, which opens space for a series of appeals to the higher instances. He asks for an expertise in the images and maintains that there was no forced touch in the deputy’s intimate regions.

The lawyer denies that there was any attempt to delay the process. “Cury was on campaign, in a hurry, and he really wasn’t found. He didn’t even pay attention to that”, he told the Sheet.

He claims that the angle of the video suggests that there was touch, but that “an expert examination of the images is needed to verify the defense’s thesis that there was no groping”.

The attempt to find Cury began in the middle of the year, only after embargoes presented by the defense to contest the receipt of the complaint became final.

In Botucatu, a court official recorded that he was at the deputy’s office on August 29, at 12:54 pm, on September 2, at 10:15 am, and on September 9, at 12:00 pm. He went to the campaign committee, on September 9, at 10:47 am, in addition to trying to contact him by phone, without return.

Advisors told him that “Fernando had not appeared at the office, he would be in the middle of the electoral campaign, visiting cities in the region” and that “Fernando does not have a day or time to be found”.

On October 18, another Justice official recorded that he had been to Alesp on “five occasions, at different times” and also had no response by cell phone.