Brazil’s Federal Superior Court to Rule on Flávio Bolsonaro’s Motion to Halt Investigations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Fifth Panel of the Federal Superior Court (STJ), on Tuesday, September 15th, will rule on Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s appeal to suspend investigations into the alleged salary kickback ‘splitting’ scheme in his former staff office in Rio’s Legislative Assembly. In April, Judge Felix Fischer, rapporteur of the case, refused to suspend investigations. Now, the ruling will be assessed by the five-member panel.

Flávio’s petition had been lodged by Frederick Wassef, then attorney for the Bolsonaro family, on the grounds that there had been a breach of bank secrecy without judicial authorization in the communication between the Rio Prosecutor’s Office and the Financial Activities Control Council (COAF).

While the Prosecutor’s Office is preparing an indictment, Flávio is challenging points that range from jurisdiction to illegal entry.

In April, Judge Felix Fischer rejected the defense’s argument, alleging that the breach of bank secrecy was authorized in two judicial rulings by Judge Flávio Itabaiana, of the 27th Criminal Court of Rio, ‘duly grounded’.

The rapporteur pointed out that, in the case record, there were “indications of materiality and authority of crimes and alleged creation of a large criminal association with a high degree of permanence and continuity in the Rio Legislative Assembly”.

In May, Flávio’s defense moved for reconsideration of the ruling on the grounds that the breach of confidentiality was based on only one paragraph of all 87 pages of the motion lodged by the Prosecutor’s Office to the Courts. Fischer also rejected the second petition.

Flávio Bolsonaro is under investigation for embezzlement, money laundering, and criminal organization in a kickback scheme of which his then advisor Fabrício Queiroz is allegedly involved; Queiroz was dismissed in 2018 after the first evidence of irregularities in the President’s son’s cabinet was disclosed. Queiroz was arrested in Atibaia (São Paulo State) in June and is under house arrest in Rio de Janeiro.

The Rio Prosecutor’s Office reported on August 31st that the Specialized Action Group to Fight Corruption (Gaecc/MPRJ) has completed its investigations against the President’s son and forwarded the criminal proceeding to the Rio de Janeiro Chief Prosecutor. An indictment against Flávio is undergoing final adjustments by the prosecutors.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, “under a criminal structure set up with the former parliamentary advisor (operator of the so-called ‘splitting’ scheme),” Flávio Bolsonaro would have “embezzled for his own profit the salaries of parliamentary advisors, some of them ‘ghosts,’ and disguised the amounts in the form of profit distribution in a candy shop of which he is a part owner and through over and under-invoiced real estate negotiations.”

The investigations of the Queiroz case developed after the breach of banking and tax secrecy records of Flávio, his wife Fernanda Bolsonaro, and the accounts of the senator’s chocolate store. In November last year, the Rio Prosecutor’s Office charged that Queiroz had received R$2 million, passed on by Flávio’s staff employees, and that part of the money embezzled would have been laundered at the Bolsotini shopowner.

In August this year, Queiroz’s bank statements attached to the investigation showed that Flávio’s ex-advisor deposited 21 checks into an account of first lady Michelle Bolsonaro. The transactions date from October 2011 to December 2016, in amounts ranging from R$3,000 to R$4,000. Altogether, the checks amounted to R$72,000 (more than US$30,000 at the time).

Similar transactions were uncovered in the account of Márcia Aguiar, Queiroz’s wife. Records show that she deposited a further six checks to Michelle in the total amount of R$17,000.

Source: Estadão Conteúdo