Lava Jato allegations have a queue of complaints years after agreements

The plea bargain agreements, which returned to the political debate in the country with the collaboration signed by Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) former aide-de-camp, left a trail of complaints and even regret on the part of its participants in Lava Jato, an operation in that this type of commitment was a pillar of the investigations.

Major targets of the operation who signed the agreements years ago are now either trying to review the obligations imposed in the past or are criticizing the circumstances at the time they agreed to collaborate with the authorities. This list includes former executives from the construction company Odebrecht, politicians and even one of the operation’s pivots, money changer Alberto Youssef.

A lawyer who defended defendants in the Petrobras scandal told the reporter that the agreements had been signed with the idea that the processes were regular, but that today we are aware of possible irregularities that “we weren’t aware of back then”.

Lava Jato has suffered a series of disruptions in recent years, such as the revelation of conversations on the Telegram app that showed collaboration and closeness between prosecutors and the then judge Sergio Moro.

One of the operation’s first collaboration agreements, that of Youssef, is now the target of a protest from his own defense, which questions whether the collaboration initiative was really spontaneous.

To this end, the lawyers are trying to explore an episode of recording conversations in the PF prison in Curitiba, which they consider to have not been properly explained. They also went to the STF with a request for action accusing former judge Moro, now a senator for União Brasil-PR, of undue interference in the wiretapping case — which the parliamentarian denies.

Outside the closed regime since 2016, the whistleblower still needs to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.

The money changer’s agreement was signed in the middle of the 2014 electoral campaign and ignited the country’s political climate in a situation that in some ways resembles what happened this month with Mauro Cid. Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp had his plea approved on the 9th by the minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Alexandre de Moraes.

The measure created expectations in Brasília about possible reports involving the former president, who is being investigated on different fronts, such as an investigation into the sale abroad of jewelry presented to the Presidency.

Cid even reported to the PF a consultation made by Bolsonaro to senior military officers at the time about a draft coup after the elections.

Cid’s statement was signed after he had been imprisoned for four months on Moraes’ orders. Critics of award-winning collaboration mechanisms claim that these circumstances encourage inconsistent reporting.

At Lava Jato, attempts to review commitments occur amid a complete change of scenario in the operation. Previously, preventive prisons (without a fixed term) imposed in Curitiba were endorsed by other courts, and a collaboration agreement ended up being seen as the quickest way to leave prison.

Today, with the collapse of Lava Jato and the end of the imprisonment of defendants convicted in the second instance, the possibility of returning to prison is slim, but the obligations of the agreements, such as restriction of rights and payment of fines, remain.

Marketer João Santana, for example, signed a plea deal in 2017 and still needs to do community service. Until 2032, he and his wife will have obligations such as submitting reports on their activities to the Court. To Folha, in May, he referred to the investigation as a “crusade of absurdities that were committed against me”.

According to the Federal Public Ministry, 209 plea bargain agreements have been signed in Curitiba alone since the operation was launched in 2014.

As time went by, more whistleblowers began to come forward to complain about the operation’s authorities, such as former PT minister Antonio Palocci and former PP-PE federal deputy Pedro Corrêa.

In May, Palocci’s lawyers informed the Federal Court of Curitiba about his willingness to talk about “Lava Jato errors”, contribute to a “more guarantor” justice system and detail the context in which he chose to plead guilty.

The request for a hearing was accepted by judge Eduardo Appio, critical of Lava Jato’s methods and now removed from office, but the testimony ended up not taking place by order of the second instance.

In the queue of complaints about the plea bargain is also the former federal deputy for PP-PE Pedro Corrêa, who will be under house arrest until February 2024. The former parliamentarian gave a description of irregularities that even appear in the famous sentence in the triplex case, which led today’s president Lula (PT) to prison in 2018.

Also involved in old lawsuits involving the current president, businessman Emílio Odebrecht found another way to show his indignation with the collaboration agreement: this year he published a book called “A War against Brazil”, in which he reported that there was “unbearable physical and mental illness” imposed by operation authorities, and which “few were able to resist”.

Emílio, who was never arrested, called Lava Jato a “snitching factory” and said that anyone who did not offer relevant reports was threatened with arrest and prosecution.

Former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol mocked Emílio’s statements on social media in May and published a video in which the businessman laughs during his testimony.

Another of Odebrecht’s whistleblowers, Alexandrino Alencar, who was seen as the construction company’s link with Lula, reported in a documentary released in 2022 in which he said: “There was pressure on us. And then it was clear that the issue was an issue with Lula. He wanted to hear from Lula’s brother, Lula’s son, Lula’s lectures”.

He also says that former governor of Rio Sérgio Cabral was manipulated to expose him. The Lava Jato defendant who was detained the longest — six years in total —, he signed a collaboration agreement directly with the PF.

Their statements, approved by the STF in early 2020, included accusations against Minister Dias Toffoli. However, the Supreme Court decided, in 2021, to declare the collaboration invalid. The former governor’s case was recalled by Attorney General Augusto Aras, after Mauro Cid’s accusation, as a negative example of an agreement without the participation of the Public Ministry.

In an interview with Folha in March, Cabral said he made the commitment because he was “completely devastated”.

“I had been in prison for almost three years and was manipulated. Thank God the Supreme Court made it invalid. I reiterate my apology to the people mentioned.”

Whistleblowers also decided to petition in the procedure opened in 2020 at the STF in defense of President Lula, in which the agent obtained copies of hacked messages from prosecutors and the invalidation of Odebrecht evidence.

These were the cases of former Petrobras director Nestor Cerveró and contractor Salim Schahin, who now accuse the operation authorities of irregularities.

Cerveró’s defense said that practices adopted in Lava Jato “are in question” and that the messages showed “institutionalized and perennial collusion by former judge Moro and members of the task force”.

The accusation of illegal combination is denied by the operation authorities, who say they do not recognize the authenticity of the hacked conversations.

The Public Ministry team has also always denied that there were irregularities in the plea bargaining procedures. He frequently repeated that the agreements provided for the participants’ obligation to tell the truth, under penalty of termination and loss of benefits granted. Phases of Operation Lava Jato in Paraná

*With information from Folha de S.Paulo

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