President of Brazilian Senate indicted for embezzlement

Brazil's Supreme Court (STF) has upheld the embezzlement charges filed in 2013 by the Prosecutor General's Office (PGR) against Senate President Renan Calheiros. The ruling on Thursday (Dec. 1st) makes the senator a defendant in court for the first time.

Calheiros is accused of using the services of a contractor's lobbyist to pay child support for a daughter he had from an extramarital relationship. He is also accused of forging documents to create a fake pretext for his payments. The scandal emerged in 2007, and the allegations led him to resign the Senate presidency at the time.

Ruling

According to Justice Edson Fachin, the judge-rapporteur for the case in the Supreme Court, the evidence showed there is probable cause to believe Renan Calheiros used invoices as a cover-up for money embezzled from Senate, faking vehicle rental services when the money was actually paid to his daughter's mother, journalist Monica Veloso.

Three justices moved to completely dismiss the charges because they felt there was no evidence to uphold the complaint. One of them, Dias Toffoli, said the allegations had been “imagined” by prosecutors. In his view, the prosecution failed to prove the car rental services were never provided. “No funds were moved around between bank accounts, and they simply assumed that the services were not delivered,” Toffoli said.

Indictment

In the complaint lodged in 2013, the Office of the Prosecutor General (PGR) indicted Calheiros for falsifying his expense accounts and using fake receipts to explain the origin of $5,000 monthly paid to Mônica Veloso between January 2004 and December 2006. When he was accused in 2007, Calheiros offered receipts for cow sales as evidence of an income that met the payments. According to the PGR's expert report, the documents are false and are not from real commercial transactions. One of the buyers is alleged to have expressly denied buying the senator's cow.

During the trial, Calheiros's lawyer defended rejecting the entire complaint for lack of evidence. "When a defective complaint is reported, the coercion is illegal. There is not enough evidence to file the complaint," said the lawyer.

Calheiros's reaction

Senate President Renan Calheiros declared in a statement that he received the news of the Supreme Court's decision with an "easy mind" and noted that the justices were divided in accepting the complaint. Some of the justices who voted in favor of it were not fully convinced of the evidence. "In the justices' debate, they were clearly divided and had doubts about the consistency of evidence of the Public Prosecution Office, considered scant by several of them, including by some [justices] who accepted the complaint," read the statement.

Renan Calheiros faces 11 counts of corruption at the Supreme Court, and they are all part of Operation Car Wash.

The party of Renan Calheiros, a fellow member of Temer's Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), also issued a public note in which stated that they "respect the Supreme Court's decision and understand that today's result shows that the process is just beginning. As for any other person, he will now have the right for a fair hearing."

*With additional reporting by Felipe Pontes.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta and Mayra Borges