Husband organizes camera footage to help wife trapped in 8/1

After images of the events of January 8 recorded by security cameras in public buildings were made available, telecommunications engineer Thiago Duarte, 37, purchased a six terabyte external hard drive to demonstrate that his wife, USP medical student Roberta Jérsyka, 35, did not commit a crime. Despite this, the STF did not consider the evidence.

The images (watch below) show Roberta arriving at the National Congress through the hat shop entrance, passing through the Green Room and Blue Room and going to the Federal Senate plenary, where she stayed for around four hours. Such as People’s Gazette showed, for the Court, the acts of January 8 are considered a multitudinous crime, that is, committed by crowds and independent of the individual conduct of the defendants. “It doesn’t matter what we did or didn’t do. The fact that we are there already makes us be treated like criminals”, he comments. Roberta’s trial has not yet been scheduled.

Most of the time she was in plenary, Roberta prayed on her knees on the floor. In the images, it is possible to see that the police officers accompanying the protesters use their cell phones, talk, take photos and even sit. “There was a moment when the police officer said that there was the best place for us to stay. We were hearing some noises outside,” she reports. The noise was from gas bombs being thrown, but Roberta only discovered it later.

On January 6th, Roberta’s birthday, she was at HQ in São Paulo, the city where she moved in 2020, when she started her medical course at USP. It was then that they commented that there was a space in one of the cars to go to Brasília to participate in the demonstration. Roberta arrived in the capital on January 7th and slept in a simple tent that she brought, at the Brasília HQ.

“There was no funding or leadership that they want to talk about. It’s not like that, it’s an organic thing”, he comments, explaining that there was no set time for them to go down to the Esplanade. On the way, she was searched by a police checkpoint. “I had water, fruit and wholemeal bread in my bag,” she says. Like the other defendants, she was still indicted for armed criminal association.

The medical student spent seven months in prison. She was only able to speak to her husband five months later, during a fifteen-minute virtual visit. It was during this contact that Roberta tried to explain to her husband the route she took inside public buildings, the approximate times she arrived and left and how she was dressed. “Her luck was the red backpack she was wearing, so it was possible to identify her”, says defense lawyer, Carolina Siebra.

The husband bought an external hard drive, downloaded the images that were received by the lawyer and began the “investigation” to find Roberta. He managed to identify her from the moment she entered the hat shop until she was removed by police officers from the Federal Senate plenary (see the video). In the plenary, Roberta spent most of the time alone, sitting or on her knees praying.

The video also shows other people, the vast majority of whom are elderly, just recording the moment with their cell phones, talking, praying. “The Federal Senate’s own police report says that the damage within the Senate plenary was few. A microphone, an unscrewed chair. There were no major damages, it was the most preserved place within the Congress”, says Siebra. At one point, Roberta started offering the food she brought to people who were nearby.

“There was a moment when a police officer said in private that if I went out with him nothing would happen, but the way he approached me showed that I would leave secretly and I wouldn’t have the courage to leave other people there”, he reports.

“A police officer suggested that we would not be arrested, but that we would go through some kind of screening and that they would listen to us, that there would be a custody hearing in 24 hours and I would be released, but that was not what happened”, he says. Roberta even provided the passwords for her cell phone and tablet to the police, as she was confident that she had not committed any crime.

After leaving the plenary, he stayed in a parking lot until dawn, where there are no security cameras. She then underwent criminal examinations and was sent to prison. “Nobody arrested me. Or if it did, I didn’t understand”, comments Roberta. They spent seven months in Colmeia, a women’s prison in the Federal District. Now, she awaits the next steps of the trial at the Federal Supreme Court.

Administrative process could cause Roberta to lose her place at USP

“Study for the most difficult entrance exam. If you are prepared for the most difficult, you can move on to anything else”, was the advice received by a professor when Roberta was thinking about strategies to get the medical entrance exam faster. “Many people study through the same textbooks and have the same teachers all over Brazil. And places are limited. So, what makes someone get a place in the shortest possible course time?”, she asked herself.

She took the advice seriously. She took the entrance exam for several federal universities and saved money to pay for travel, registration and hotel in São Paulo to take the test. “Since I was studying for the USP exams, I thought ‘Why not take the USP exam?’”. Her father, who was already receiving palliative care after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, died the week of the exam in São Paulo. Roberta gave up the trip to live those last moments with her father, but the day before the race her friends presented her with a new plane ticket. She took the difficult test and didn’t pass, despite doing well.

Even with several approvals at other federal universities for the medicine course, he returned to study at USP. On his birthday that year, he asked his family and friends as a gift for the twenty books of literature required for entrance exams at USP and Unicamp, which are among the most competitive in Brazil. Roberta offered to answer competitors’ questions “One way to learn is to teach. So she looked for people she didn’t even know to help and said ‘If I don’t know the answer, I’ll go after it’”, she reports. That year she was approved by Sisu and in February 2020 she was already living in São Paulo, where she stayed until the day she went to Brasília. After seven months in prison, she returned to Fortaleza, her hometown.

Roberta even created an Instagram profile to tell the story of her approval and encourage other people. After achieving her dream position, Roberta is now at risk of losing it. This is because the university opened an administrative process for her participation in the events of January 8, after colleagues asked for her expulsion. She has already been heard by the board, but has not yet received any feedback. Furthermore, she doesn’t know very well what awaits her in the STF’s own trial, seeing other defendants receive sentences of 17 years in prison.

“I leave home and say goodbye to my family without knowing if I will return”

Married for six years, Roberta was waiting for graduation to have children, but with the future so uncertain, she doesn’t really know what she will do. “I’m interested in studying medicine, yes, I gave up a lot of things in my life for that. In fact, until today, at the age of 35, I postponed my dream of having children,” she confides.

“Now, at 35 years old, my college is closed. I don’t know what it will be like in relation to the STF, because I have no hope in relation to them anymore. Just a miracle really,” she reveals. Roberta also comments on the insecurity she experiences. “Sometimes, I leave home and say goodbye to my family without knowing if I will return. Not knowing if an arrest warrant will appear. I always say goodbye as if it were the last time,” she reiterates.

With everything she has experienced, Roberta has managed to be clear about what is a priority for her. “When we discover what is most important in life, I realize that it is no longer the most renowned college in Latin America, but being close to my family”, she confesses.

“Today it’s us, tomorrow it could be anyone”

According to lawyer Carolina Siebra, the virtual plenary session harms the defendants, especially Roberta’s case, as there is robust evidence that demonstrates her innocence. “She deserved a trial in a physical plenary session, including with her presence, because it would be the first time that Minister Alexandre de Moraes would look at the face of the person he is judging”, comments Siebra. A possible public repercussion could also influence the STF’s decision.

Carolina Siebra also highlights that the position of the Attorney General’s Office is dangerous not only for Roberta, but for society as a whole, as it sets dangerous legal precedents. “Legally speaking, the Attorney General’s Office, the person responsible for the criminal action, should bring evidence to incriminate her. This is not what has happened in this process, they have been working with mere assumptions”, says the lawyer.

“Today it’s us, right-wing, conservative, tomorrow it could be anyone. I’m not asking for privilege, I’m asking for a fair trial, which every citizen deserves”, concludes Roberta.