Pedro Guimarães is now being investigated as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Caixa employees for alleged practices of harassment.| Photo: José Dias/PR

The former president of Caixa Econômica Federal, Pedro Guimarães, became a defendant in the process that investigates alleged cases of harassment against bank employees, revealed by the Metrópoles website in June last year. According to information from the column that found the complaint, the Federal Court of Brasília accepted the action of the Federal Public Ministry this Thursday (30).

The process, however, runs in secrecy. In a note, lawyer José Luis Oliveira Lima denied that the executive had committed crimes and said he believed he would be acquitted. “The defense of Pedro Guimarães categorically denies the commission of any crime and is sure that during the instruction the truth will come out, with his acquittal. Pedro Guimarães trusts Justice”, he says.

According to the employees, the alleged abuses would have occurred, most of the time, on Caixa’s work trips through Brazil. In the videos published by Metrópoles, the women claim to have been invited by Guimarães to go to the sauna or the swimming pool.

Among the complaints presented are reports of touching parts of their bodies without consent. The president of Caixa would also have the custom of asking female assistants to go to his hotel room to take objects that he “needed”, such as cell phone chargers or some document.

The day after being quoted, Pedro Guimarães resigned from his position at the bank, saying he was the victim of a “cruel, unfair, unequal situation that will be corrected at the right time with the strength of will”.