Lawyers of judge removed from Lava Jato donated BRL 600,000 to PT in 2023

Lawyers Walfrido Warde Junior and Rafael Ramires Valim, who defend Judge Eduardo Appio, removed from the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, donated R$ 600,000 to the PT’s national directory this year, according to official data from the Electoral Court.

Warde and Valim are among the party’s three largest private donors, with R$400,000 and R$200,000, respectively. They appear only behind businessman Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello, from Raízen Energia, who donated R$ 1 million to the PT (see in full).

The two lawyers are partners in the law firm that took on Appio’s defense after being removed from the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba for allegedly making a telephone call to the son of judge Marcelo Malucelli. A report by the Federal Police indicated the possibility that the magistrate had been the author of the phone call, but a private investigation would have discarded this conclusion.

Four years ago, Warde signed a manifesto with 149 other jurists in which he criticized the disclosure of a telephone conversation between former president Dilma Rousseff (PT) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in 2016, in which the then president intended to take office. him as Minister of the Civil House in an attempt to avoid possible arrest.

The lawyer also criticized the impeachment process of the former president, claiming that the impeachment would be a “rupture” and without legal grounds. Warde also defended Dilma in the action that investigated irregularities in the purchase of the Pasadena refinery, in the United States, by Petrobras.

Rafael Valim, on the other hand, was part of Lula’s defense when he was serving a prison term at the headquarters of the Federal Police in Curitiba and criticized the performance of then-judge Sergio Moro at the time.