Lava Jato Charges Lula, Palocci and Okamotto with Money Laundering

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Lava Jato task force in Paraná filed charges against ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for laundering R$4 (US$ 0.7) million in Odebrecht kickbacks passed on as official donations to the Lula Institute between December 2013 and March 2014. Lula’s ex-Minister of Finance Antônio Palocci, and the president of the Institute, Paulo Okamotto, were also charged.

This is the fourth set of charges made by the Paraná Lava Jato against Lula and the second related to the institute that bears the ex-president’s name.

According to prosecutors, Marcelo Odebrecht authorized the payment of R$4 million to Lula that would be taken from the company’s ‘friend’ sub-account, code for the leftist, listed in the ‘Italian’ spreadsheet of the contractor’s “Structured Operations” sector.

To ‘launder’ the kickback, the transfers were accounted for as official donations to the Lula Institute, paid in four R$1 million installments. According to Lava Jato, the charges are based on e-mails and spreadsheets seized in searches conducted in earlier stages of the operation, in addition to Marcelo Odebrecht and Antônio Palocci’s denunciations.

In a note, Lula’s defense classified the charges as a ‘fabrication’ of the task force. “Such donations, which Lava Jato claims were ‘concealed’, are duly documented through receipts issued by the Lula Institute – which should not be confused with the ex-president – and were duly accounted for,” said lawyer Cristiano Zanin Martins.

The prosecutors said that communications obtained by the task force show that Marcelo Odebrecht advised the contractor’s bribes supervisor, Hilberto Silva, that Okamotto would be in contact to make an official donation to the Lula Institute, which would be debited from the ‘friend’ sub-account used for bribery.

“The Italian (Palocci) said that the Japanese (Okamotto) will seek him for formal support for the Ins. (Lula Institute) of 4M (either all this year, or 2 this year and 2 the next)”, Marcelo Odebrecht wrote to Hilberto Silva. The 4M means R$4 million. “It will come out of a balance that my father’s friend (Lula) still has with me of 14 but with MP in what concerns the speech because it will be formal.”

MP would be responsible for the contractor’s communication, which would be consistent with the discourse that the transfers were legitimate, according to Lava Jato. The acronym HS stands for Hilberto Silva, supervisor of the kickback department.

Marcelo’s e-mail was sent on November 26th, 2013 – two weeks later, on December 16th, 2013, the first donation was made to the Lula Institute. Payments continued on January 31st, 2014 and March 5th and 31st that same year.

Odebrecht’s payment record would also be included in spreadsheets seized from Okamotto during the 24th stage of Lava Jato, the Aletheia.

Accusations

The new set of charges against Lula is the fourth lodged by Lava Jato Paraná since the investigations began in 2014. The last three placed the leftist on the dock for passive corruption and money laundering, and two resulted in convictions, upheld by the Federal Regional Court (TRF-4) and by the Federal Superior Court (STJ).

Lula’s first conviction was handed down by then-Judge Sérgio Moro in July 2017 in the Guarujá triplex lawsuit – the apartment allegedly had been renovated by the OAS construction company as a ‘gift’ to the leftist. The initial sentence of nine years and six months in prison was raised to 12 years and one month in January 2018 by the TRF-4. In April last year, the STJ confirmed the sentence, but reduced it to eight years and ten months.

The second sentence, also confirmed upon appeal, is so far the most severe for the leftist: 17 years and one month in prison. The decision was made by the TRF-4 in the criminal lawsuit that targeted renovations paid by contractors Odebrecht and OAS at a country home in Atiabaia (SP), which is registered in the name of Fernando Bittar, son of Lula’s friend and ex-Mayor of Campinas, Jacó Bittar.

The third indictment against Lula, which also targets the ex-president’s Institute, is still awaiting a sentence to be handed down by Moro’s replacement, judge Luiz Antônio Bonat, of Curitiba’s 13th District Federal Court. The case awaits closing arguments – a process that precedes the sentence – for the second time.

Last year, Justice Edson Fachin, rapporteur for Lava Jato at the Federal Supreme Court (STF), ordered that the deadline for briefs be reopened after the Court confirmed that defendants- such as Lula – have the right to be heard after their co-defendant whistleblowers file their own briefs. The deadline was reopened once again after STF Justice Ricardo Lewandowski granted Lula the right to access Odebrecht’s leniency agreement – a corporate accusation – which supports part of the charges in the case.

COMMENTS BY LULA’S DEFENSE COUNSEL:

After the STF has recognized illegalities, Lava Jato fabricates a new indictment against Lula

Ex-president Lula’s defense was surprised by yet another indictment filed by Curitiba’s Lava Jato without any substance and in a clear example of lawfare. The case, also underwritten by prosecutors who recently had their conduct regarding Lula analyzed by the CNMP after 42 adjournments – and benefited from the statute of limitations – seeks to criminalize four lawful donations made by the Odebrecht company to the Lula Institute between 2013 and 2014. These donations, which Lava Jato claims were “concealed,” are duly documented through receipts issued by the Lula Institute – which should not be confused with the ex-president himself – and were duly accounted for.

Lava Jato once again resorts to accusations without substance against its opponents, at a time when the illegality of its methods in relation to Lula has been recently recognized in at least three hearings conducted by the Federal Supreme Court. In the case of the use of Palocci’s indictment in proceedings against Lula on the eve of the 2018 presidential elections, the Federal Supreme Court, by majority vote, also identified a potential political motivation for the charge, in addition to the illegality itself. Furthermore, the same issue addressed in the new indictment is already the subject of another criminal lawsuit opened by the same Curitiba Lava Jato against Lula, which was recently overturned by a Supreme Court ruling, granting the ex-president’s defense motion.

The excess of frivolous allegations and the repetition of accusations are lawfare tactics, aiming at holding the enemy in a web of imputations, with the purpose of stripping him of his time and tarnishing his reputation.

The indictment accuses Lula and others of money laundering, based on the assumption that the ex-president was part of a criminal organization. However, Lula has already been acquitted of this charge by the 12th Federal Court of Brasília, by a ruling that has become final (res judicata) and that found political motives in the drawing up of the indictment. In the Petrobras contracts referenced in the indictment, there is no act practiced by Lula (official act), just as there is no conduct imputed to the ex-president that has been defined in time and space, even after five years of investigation.

This new onslaught by Lava Jato against Lula reinforces the need for the motion of suspicion of Curitiba’s prosecutors regarding the ex-president to be recognized, which is pending consideration in the Supreme Court, as well as the need to restart the trial of ex-judge Sergio Moro’s plea of suspected judicial bias – so that the lawsuits brought by Lava Jato against Lula be reversed.

ATTORNEY FERNANDO FERNANDES, PAULO OKAMOTTO’S DEFENSE COUNSEL

Paulo Okamotto has never handled kickbacks or illegal activities with anyone, much less with Palocci, or Marcelo Odebrecht. He has already been acquitted in a lawsuit concerning a donation to the Lula Institute, and was granted a favorable opinion before that by the Prosecutor’s Office, dismissing the case based on Law 9,394/91, which states that the presidential archives constitute “Brazilian cultural heritage”. The Institute’s social purpose is the same as those of [former presidents] Fernando Henrique and Obama. The Curitiba Prosecutor’s Office is repeating the same illegality. The defense hopes that this repetition of legal facts previously reviewed will not be accepted in a new form.

Source: Estadão Conteúdo