Eduardo Appio acquits accused and criticizes operation

In his first sentence in cases related to Operation Lava Jato, Judge Eduardo Appio acquitted Raul Schmidt Felippe Júnior, who had been denounced by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) for the crimes of passive corruption and money laundering. Appio took over the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, which houses the operation processes, in February this year.

According to the investigations, Raul Schmidt would have acted on behalf of public agents intermediating the chartering of the drillship Titanium Explorer, from the company Vantage Drilling, by Petrobras. At the time, he would have negotiated the payment of bribes, in addition to having received part of the amount. According to the MPF, the amount was US$ 31 million. The money would have been sent to an account in Switzerland, not declared to the Brazilian authorities.

illegal evidence

Among Schmidt’s defense arguments was the fact that there was no judicial decision authorizing the breaking of the accused’s bank secrecy when Lava Jato prosecutors had access to his account information. That is, according to the lawyers, bank details were obtained by the MPF illegally, which made the evidence presented in the process illegal.

In his sentence, Appio states that the MPF “could not have had access to the data contained in the bank secrecy of the accused without a prior court decision”. “Judicial authorization is a fundamental prerequisite for the validity and legitimacy of the evidence produced. It is undeniable that in the file the MPF itself acknowledges having received data relating to the accused’s bank secrecy through informal cooperation channels”, completes the judge.

Still according to Appio, not even the complaint offered by the MPF in 2015 could have been accepted by the Justice, considering that evidence was produced “under the seal of complete illegality”.

Lava Jato reviews

Throughout the sentence, Appio criticizes the methods of the prosecutors of Operation Lava Jato. In one of the excerpts, the judge says that the members of the task force invested, “in an illegal way, in true representatives of the Brazilian State, in what, pejoratively, was called the ‘Republic of Curitiba'”.

“Corruption must always be combated by all State bodies, proving to be a true obstacle to the country’s growth. in the production of evidence”, completes the magistrate.

In another part of the sentence, Appio says that the “absolute lack of control over judicial acts” can result in a rupture of the Democratic Rule of Law, converting what is called “judicial populism” into an “Instrument of potential persecution of certain segments of society”.

Relationship with January 8

Further on, the judge states that the Brazilian criminal procedure “cannot serve as a media spectacle”, which would create “the ideal conditions for pseudo-popular movements to destroy public property, invade federal buildings and plot against democracy in the country”.

“In this sense, it is important to note that the regrettable events of the last January 8, 2023 in the capital of Brazil are a direct result of this latent state of conspiracy against the legally constituted powers of the Republic”, he said, referring to the vandalism that occurred in Brasília.