Video:The versions that Sérgio Cabral has already given against accusations – 03/15/2023 – Power

“If there is one person who will not change the version, it’s me. Because that version is the true one. I never asked for bribes, I always asked for support for the campaign”, said former governor Sérgio Cabral in November 2017, in his 7th statement to the Federal Justice.

“In the name of my wife, my children, my family and history, I decided to speak the truth and be okay with myself”, said Cabral in February 2019, in his 17th interrogation, when he confessed to having set up a scheme of bribes in the Government of Rio de Janeiro.

After spending six years in prison and three months out of jail, Cabral has changed, again, what he classifies as the truth.

“It’s not the version. The truth was what I said the first time”, he told Sheet on the last day 8.

Accused of charging 5% bribes in major works, Cabral has now resumed as a defense thesis the use of slush funds from the electoral campaign for personal purposes. That would be the source of funds for the purchase of jewelry and various personal payments identified in the investigations of the Federal Public Ministry.

He confirms his relationship with money changers Renato and Marcelo Chebar, but denies being the owner of the US$ 100 million in foreign accounts handed over by the two brothers as part of the delation agreement. He only says that the duo organized the cash flow for the campaign, without knowing how they operated.

This was the version presented in 15 of the 29 interrogations of the former governor to the Federal Court, the last time in August 2018.

In February 2019, Cabral began a series of 12 testimonies to Judge Marcelo Bretas in which he confessed to having received bribes and led a criminal organization since his political rise in the 1990s.

The 29 testimonies —of which 2 were silent— add up to more than 27 hours that often contradict each other.

The volume of Cabral’s testimonies is due to the slicing of accusations made by the Federal Public Ministry, as new cases were discovered over the years. The former governor calls the strategy an “overwhelming avalanche of lawsuits”, with the aim of preventing his defense.

Cabral responds to 36 criminal actions on charges of criminal organization, corruption, money laundering, tax evasion and embezzlement. He has already been sentenced in 20 cases to sentences totaling 375 years, 8 months and 29 days in prison. Higher courts overturned other convictions, which may be reflected in the sentences still in force.

The former governor claims that he confessed and then tried to become a whistleblower because of what he calls the torture of prosecutors and judge Marcelo Bretas.

“Put me on the macaw stick. Now, don’t mess with my son, my brother, my mother, the mothers of my children. They did it in a fascist, disgusting and cowardly way”, he told the Sheet.

He is referring to the arrest of former first lady Adriana Ancelmo and the accusations against relatives in the midst of the 36 criminal actions he was the target of. The ex-wife had convictions confirmed at the TRF-2 (Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region), as well as her brother, Maurício Cabral. Another ex-wife, Susana Neves, was acquitted in the second instance after Bretas was convicted.

Some striking phrases from the interrogations, however, indicate similar reflections by the former governor.

“I didn’t know how to contain myself in the face of so much power and so much political force”, he said, when he still denied having received bribes.

“Attachment to money, to power… This is an addiction,” he said when confessing for the first time.

Currently, he treats the expression “addiction” as an outburst. But he maintains the interpretation that political ascension prevented him from seeing the irregularities that he still confesses.

“It’s not that it’s an addiction, but power and its consequences… You have to measure a lot. […] I was always surrounded by people, suck ass for shit. All that power entourage. […] It’s a process, you don’t see it.”

In a note, the MPF (Federal Public Ministry) stated that its performance in all cases, including those involving the former governor, “was always guided by the objective elucidation of the facts and the measures adopted by the gathered evidence and limits of the legal system”.

“It also clarifies that the fact that the Judiciary has complied with the measures required by the MPF proves that the measures and possible dismemberments obeyed the legislation. in the course of all the facts involved”, says the note.