Operation Lava jet: Marcelo Odebrecht is sentenced to 19 years and 4 months in prison

Operation Lava jet:
Marcelo Odebrecht is sentenced to 19 years and 4 months in prison

Marcelo Odebrecht is sentenced to 19 years and 4 months in prison
Giuliano Gomes / Folhapress


MONICA BERGAMO
COLUMNIST LEAF
Graciliano ROCK
SPECIAL ENVOY The CURITIBA

03/08/2016 11h16 - 12h34 Last Updated

Marcelo Odebrecht, former president and heir to the Odebrecht group, was sentenced by Judge Sergio Moro to 19 years and 4 months in prison for the crimes of corruption, money laundering and integrate criminal organization.

He has been detained since June 2015, when it was the target of a phase of Operation Lava Jato, and turned defendant Justice a month later.

The businessman has already released company executives to negotiate whistleblower according awarded the Justice and studies to make himself collaboration agreement. Rogério Araújo, Márcio Faria, César Rocha and Alexandrino Alencar, former executives of the contractor, were also convicted.

In the sentence, Moro determined that Odebrecht, Faria and Araújo remain imprisoned while awaiting the resources. To justify the decision, the magistrate found that there is a risk of continuing and cited the payments made by an offshore indications attributed to Odebrecht to a Secret marketeer PT account, João Santana, Switzerland.

The judge also mentions that two executives -investigados group in the case of payments to publicitário- were transferred abroad supposed to leave them out of the reach of Brazilian authorities.

CONSTRUCTION

Marcelo Odebrecht and three other executives of the group were found guilty of corruption, money laundering and criminal organization of training to obtain contracts totaling R $ 12.6 billion of the works of Comperj (Petrochemical Complex of Rio), the refinery Abreu and Lima (Rnest, PE) and the Getúlio Vargas refinery (Repar, PR).

The works were among the 10 largest in the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program), core infrastructure showcase of Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments. Greatest work of PAC, Comperj is budgeted at R $ 45 billion, two and half times more than the estimated cost initially. Abreu e Lima, due out by R $ 26 billion, is delayed six years.

It is estimated that bribes paid to former directors of Petrobras and PT PP and PMDB -partidos that looted the services of boards and Petrobras- Supply represents up to 3% of the contracts.

For contracts of these works, the judge found that Marcelo Odebrecht, Márcio Faria, Rogerio Araujo and Cesar Rocha were responsible for paying kickbacks to former directors of Petrobras Paulo Roberto Costa (Supply) and Renato Duque (Services) and the former manager Pedro Barusco.

Snitches, Costa and Barusco admitted receiving bribes in foreign accounts.

In the sentence, Moro dismissed the argument that the Lava Jato has focused the blame on the contractors and not the public officials and said the former leaders of the state were arrested.

"In any case, the criminal proceedings is not space to discuss ideological questions about the role of the state or the market in the economy, but rather to define, based on the evidence, the criminal responsibility of the accused. The accountability of public and private agents guilty of corruption favors both the state and the market, without any discrimination, "said the condemnation stretch.

Moro acknowledged that there is no evidence that Paulo Roberto Costa, Renato de Souza Duque and Pedro Barusco have committed official act to illegally promote Odebrecht, but the payments received by them abroad, are sufficient to set up the crimes of corruption, "Bulging contract prices or additives or allowing them to be overpriced. "

NAPHTHA

The judge also rejected the contention of prosecutors that there was corruption in the renegotiation of a naphtha sales contract (basic input of the plastics industry) Petrobras to Braskem - petrochemical arm of the Odebrecht group.

In the case of naphtha, he was sentenced former executive of Braskem and Odebrecht Alexandrino Alencar by an act of corruption and money laundering. He was acquitted for lack of evidence of criminal association crime.

The renegotiation of input prices, which involved Paulo Roberto Costa, as the ruling favored the petrochemical prices below those charged in the market by paying bribes.

"One can possibly as do the defense, argued that the review would be 'fair', but the fact is that having the director of Petrobras payroll certainly contributed to the review of a contract to the disadvantage of the state," he wrote Moro.

TUITION ABROAD

The fee, according to the sentence, ran a network of secret accounts in offshore names in tax havens. According to the indictment, the Odebrecht subsidiaries abroad were the source of US payments $ 16.3 million (R $ 61.4 million at today's exchange rate) to the former directors of Petrobras Paulo Roberto Costa and Renato Duque and ex- manager Peter Barusco.

In addition, between 2011 and 2012, Odebrecht held eight deposits totaling US $ 4.2 million in an account in Hong Kong and the money changer Alberto Youssef released the cash value in reais in Brazil, to deliver Paulo Roberto Costa .

Judge Sergio Moro rejected, one by one, the defense arguments of the accused questioning formal aspects of criminal proceedings, as the power of judgment and impartiality of the magistrate.

In one of the controversies, the defense of Márcio Faria has attached the decision of the Federal Criminal Court Swiss deemed irregular shipping procedures of bank documents of offshore companies assigned to Odebrecht prosecutors that country to Brazil.

Live stressed that the court of the city of Belinzona not determined the invalidity of evidence in the prosecution of Curitiba.

"The procedural error should be corrected in Switzerland, without regard to the procedures in Brazil. The procedural error is not sufficient to determine the unlawfulness of proof, since suprível" the judge wrote.

He then compared: "This is not of illegal evidence, that is produced in violation of fundamental rights of the investigation or the accused, as a confession extracted by duress, a search and seizure without a warrant or breach of bank confidentiality devoid of fair cause, "wrote Moro.

Moro also criticized the attitude of the group of defense lawyers. He said there was "some abuse of the right of defense."

"In the process or out, manifest or newspaper interviews, [lawyers] complain about the process of driving, imagining fanciful pursuit to its customers, without, however, refute the evidence presented by the prosecution, and not only the statements of employees, but the categorical documentary proof of payment of bribes abroad, "stabbed the judge.

ACCOUNTS ABROAD

Although Odebrecht has always denied the use of secret accounts abroad, bank documents sent by the authorities of Switzerland and Monaco, as well as statements delivered by informers Paulo Roberto Costa and Pedro Barusco, former employees of Petrobras, reveal that the contractor passed money to members of the state board.

bank records seized in the 23th stage of Lava jet, called Acarajé reveal that two executives from Odebrecht, Hilberto Mascarenhas Alves Silva Filho and Luiz Eduardo Rocha Soares, controlled accounts abroad and intermediated lending to marketeer John Santana, arrested late last month .

Santana's wife, advertising Monica Moura confirmed in testimony to the Federal Police to double the company received $ 3 million from Odebrecht via two cash account abroad. The payments were related to campaign debts held in three countries: Angola, Panama and Venezuela.

OTHER SIDE

Sought the advice of Odebrecht press has not yet ruled on the sentence.

In the closing arguments of the process, delivered last week, the defense Marcelo asked for his acquittal on the grounds that the group of accused was a "huge network" with "decentralized structure" and that there was no way the defendant know everything that happened in the organization.

The final arguments, signed by lawyer Nabor Bulhões, claim that if there were any payment to Petrobras employees, happened "in absentia" it.

See the sentences and crimes each sentenced:

Marcelo Odebrecht (19 years and 4 months): bribery, money laundering and criminal association
Márcio Faria da Silva (10 years): bribery, money laundering and criminal association
Rogerio Santos de Araújo (10 years): bribery, money laundering and criminal association
Cesar Ramos Rocha (8 years, 10 months and 20 days): bribery and criminal association
Alexandrian Salles Ramos de Alencar (7 years and 6 months): active corruption and money laundering
Renato Duque (11 years, 1 month and 10 days): passive corruption and money laundering
Pedro Barusco (11 years, 1 month and 10 days): passive corruption and money laundering
Paulo Roberto Costa (11 years, 1 month and 10 days): passive corruption and money laundering
Alberto Youssef (11 years, 10 months and 10 days): passive corruption and money laundering