STF gives Tony Garcia 30 days to testify to the Federal Police

The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Dias Toffoli, in response to a request from the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), determined that businessman and former state deputy for the PPB (today PP) Tony Garcia testify to the Federal Police (PF ). Garcia has been making accusations against federal prosecutors and former Lava Jato judge and Paraná senator for União Brasil, Sergio Moro.

According to Toffoli’s determination, the businessman will have 30 days to be heard by the delegate Rafael Fernandes Souza Dantas, from the PF. The minister said, in his dispatch, that he hopes that Garcia’s testimony “can clarify, in detail and with the presentation of the respective documents, the accusations made by him”.

“Undercover Agent”

Tony Garcia has said in interviews that after being arrested in 2004 on suspicion of fraudulent management in a consortium company, he was forced to act as an “undercover agent” for Moro. Among the tasks allegedly assigned to him, Garcia claims that he was coerced into acting, at the behest of the senator, in a series of illegal activities, such as the installation of clandestine wiretaps in the cells of prisoners in Lava Jato.

The businessman also alleges that he was obliged to force prisoners to give statements that incriminated people linked to the Workers’ Party, such as President Lula (PT). As proof of his allegations, Garcia posted on Twitter what would be part of a sentence in which Sergio Moro praises him for the work done and, according to the businessman, confirms his participation in the collection of evidence.

“It would be difficult for the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the Justice to gather significant evidence of these complex facts without the help of Antônio Celso Garcia, since he was a participant or knew the facts. In addition, the accused not only revealed the facts, but also participated in steps aimed at gathering evidence related to them”, says the alleged excerpt from the sentence published by Garcia.

Alleged irregularities were reported in 2021

Such irregularities would have occurred, according to the businessman, between 2005 and 2006. Garcia maintains that he took the case to the attention of federal judge Gabriela Hardt, at the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, in 2021. The businessman would be trying to reverse the rescission of the agreement with the Justice – the agreement ended up being rescinded a year later, at the request of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Garcia claims that the first measures on the complaints were only taken in April of this year, when Judge Eduardo Appio, at the time head of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, forwarded the complaint to the STF.

“Awkward story”, counters Moro

Moro, in turn, has refuted the accusations. In an interview with Rádio Nova Brasil FM, the senator said the recordings made by Garcia “with his accomplices” were requested by the Public Ministry and supervised by the Police. In the interview, Moro still calls Garcia a “swindler” and a “compulsive liar”and on social media the former Lava Jato judge claims that those who take the businessman’s allegations seriously have “lack of a sense of ridicule”.

“This story is the most bizarre possible. I saw the comments and even had a few laughs. Sharpen on the words of Tony Garcia, he who was responsible for revealing the ‘mensalão’. Then he comes to apologize for Dilma’s impeachment, so was he responsible for Dilma’s impeachment? They are fantasies of this individual”, shot Moro.