Lava Jato: 1 in 3 Moro sentences has already been annulled – 03/16/2024 – Power

Ten years after the beginning of Operation Lava Jato, 14 of the 45 sentences issued by former judge Sergio Moro in the operation were annulled in decisions from higher courts.

Among those benefiting are well-known politicians who had been accused by the task force in Paraná, such as current president Lula (PT), former minister Antonio Palocci and former PT treasurer Delúbio Soares.

Part of the convictions, issued from 2014 to 2018, when Moro left the judiciary to enter politics, remains pending definitive assessment in the Judiciary, due to appeals from the parties.

Currently, the former magistrate, who was Minister of Justice under Jair Bolsonaro (PL), is a senator and represents Paraná for União Brasil and is the target of a request for impeachment in the Electoral Court. The first phase of Lava Jato was launched exactly ten years ago, on March 17, 2014.

On the list of convicts whose cases have not yet been exhausted are former minister José Dirceu (PT) and former governor of Rio Sérgio Cabral (former MDB), both with appeals in the queue for trials at the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and awaiting in freedom.

A Sheet identified 15 old Moro sentences in this situation.

Overturned convictions do not technically mean that defendants have been exonerated.

The annulments occurred mainly because the higher courts understood that the cases were not the responsibility of the Federal Court of Curitiba or, in two cases, because it was understood that accused defendants should speak out only after whistleblowers in the final stages of the actions.

The 14 annulled actions covered around 60 convicted defendants.

The sequence of revisions was driven by the 2019 STF decision that established that processes linked to campaign funds must be processed in the Electoral Court, not in the Federal Court.

In cases of annulled sentences, the new responsible judge can validate decisions of the magistrate who first acted in the process.

In Lula’s convictions, there was an understanding that the facts covered in the accusations had already expired, and it was later decided to archive them.

In addition to Moro, judge Gabriela Hardt also issued a sentence against the current president, in the case known as the Atibaia site (70 km from São Paulo).

The late turnarounds in Lava Jato generated unusual situations, such as that of former deputy André Vargas (PT-PR), who spent three and a half years in prison, was released from prison on parole and ended up subsequently receiving a 14-year sentence. years of imprisonment be invalidated. The STF understood that the process should not have taken place in Paraná.

Former senator of the Federal District for PTB Gim Argello, accused of corruption in his role in a Petrobras CPI, had already received a pardon (a benefit granted at Christmas to those who have already served a certain portion of their sentence) when his sentence was annulled.

Arrested in April 2016, he spent three years and two months in prison in Paraná. Only when his case reached a higher court, the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), was it recognized, in 2022, that the processing should have taken place in the Electoral Court, not in the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba.

He says that he has only now managed to have assets unlocked and that “correcting the error took time, but it did not fail”.

“Did the CPI take place in Paraná? No. Was the parliamentarian from Paraná? No. What did it have to do with Paraná? Nothing. Suddenly, within months I was convicted and arrested. They even asked me to ‘talk about 20 senators and 20 businessmen ‘ at the Federal Police. I had nothing to say,” he told Sheet.

In the DF Electoral Court, the former senator’s case ended up archived in 2023, since even the pardon had already been issued.

As shown by Sheet, sentence of former deputy Eduardo Cunha annulled by the Supreme Court in 2021 and sent to the Rio Electoral Court may have part of the facts already prescribed. The conviction had occurred for receiving and moving US$1.5 million in secret accounts in Switzerland.

Another annulled Lava Jato conviction, issued in 2018 in a case involving bribery to the state-owned company Transpetro, was sent to a federal judge in the Federal District, who in turn considered in 2022 that the processing should take place in Bahia, where the crimes allegedly occurred.

A Sheet He sought out current senator Sergio Moro, but he said he would not comment on the invalidation of his sentences.

Some of his old decisions involved whistleblowers with agreements approved in court and who had no interest in insisting on appeals in other instances.

There are also cases in which convicted defendants still seek precedents already set in higher courts to obtain an extension for their cases.

The argument of migration to the Electoral Court was even cited by the defense of Carlos Habib Chater, owner of the Torre station, in Brasília, where an exchange office operated that led the PF to name the operation Lava Jato, in the early days of the investigation.

He filed an instrument called criminal review, which exists for cases in which resources have already been exhausted and which can change old understandings in the event of a miscarriage of justice.

Former Petrobras director Renato Duque, one of the prisoners who spent the longest time in Lava Jato prison, also filed a request of this type.

Businessman Gerson Almada, former partner of the construction company Engevix, with an appeal still pending, questions Moro’s impartiality and states, among other points, that the then judge, in his statements, asked the defendants ten times as many questions as the Ministry Public.

The former contractor’s defense also cites the position of minister Gilmar Mendes in the Supreme Court trial that considered Moro a suspect in trying Lula, in 2021.

Also in the so-called Lava Jato in Rio de Janeiro, there has been a sequence of annulment of decisions. In the state, defenses question the concentration of a series of different cases in the hands of federal judge Marcelo Bretas. Lawyers understand that investigations not directly linked to the initial stages of Lava Jato in Rio de Janeiro should have been drawn among several magistrates.

On the 6th, three Bretas sentences issued against former governor Cabral were annulled by the second instance. One of them addressed the alleged buying of votes for Rio’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Lava Jato cases are also processed directly at the STF. Former president Fernando Collor, now a member of the PRD (former PTB), was sentenced in 2023 to eight years and ten months in prison for corruption and money laundering. He is free to await the judgment of his appeals.