Former Chief of Staff in Brazil Offers Details for Plea Deal

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Former Brazilian Chief of Staff, Antonio Palocci, told judge Sergio Moro during questioning on Thursday that he is willing to give ‘names, addresses and operations carried out’. According to the former official the information he has would keep Lava Jato investigators busy for ‘another year’.

“All the names and situations that I have chosen not to mention here, because of the sensitivity of the information, are at your disposal,” Palocci is heard saying to Judge Moro during his deposition. A video of the deposition was made available.

According to local media Palocci, who was Finance Minister under the Lula Administration and later President Dilma Rousseff’s Chief of Staff, is discussing a plea-bargaining deal with federal prosecutors and Judge Moro for leniency in charges of corruption and money laundering.

The former official, who continues to deny having collected bribes from Odebrecht for the PT (Workers Party) between 2006 and 2013, has been in prison in Curitiba since September of 2016, accused of corruption and money laundering crimes.

According to investigators Palocci managed a checking account which received payments made by Odebrecht’s Structured Operations Sector. The sector was responsible for paying bribes to politicians in exchange for undue benefits in the federal government.

During the deposition, Palocci reiterated that he was not the ‘Italian’ mentioned in Odebrecht logbooks. The construction company gave aliases to those it gave money to and Marcelo Odebrecht has said to federal prosecutors that the individual dubbed ‘Italian’ was in fact Antonio Palocci.

The former government official also admitted that although he did not take part in the corruption scheme set up by Odebrecht he was aware of the illicit campaign contributions ‘in all election campaigns’.