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BRASÍLIA – The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) decided to unify and reopen two investigations into alleged payments from the OAS contractor to Mayor Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ). The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Edson Fachin, authorized the request and, in an order on Thursday, ordered the transfer of the case to the Federal Police for the reopening of the investigations against the mayor. The case is pending confidentiality.
Two investigations in the STF found suspicions of transfers from the OAS to Rodrigo Maia. One of them is based on exchanges of messages between the parliamentarian and the former president of the contractor, Léo Pinheiro. The Federal Police concluded this investigation in 2017 and pointed out the existence of evidence of the crime of passive corruption involving Maia, accusing him of benefiting the OAS in an interim measure in exchange for receiving electoral donations. At that time, the team of then-Attorney General Raquel Dodge left a draft complaint ready to be filed with the Supreme Court against him, but Dodge left the case to a decision by his successor.
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The Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, who took office in September last year, did not decide whether to file this complaint with the STF and asked his team to carry out a fine-toothed comb in the evidence of the case. Now, Aras understood that it would be necessary to reopen and deepen the investigations.
A second investigation, into the alleged OAS two cash transfers to Maia, based on the award-winning statement from officials in the contractor’s parallel accounting sector, was filed by Dodge shortly before leaving the command of the PGR. Earlier this year, the PF sent a letter to Fachin claiming to have found new evidence about the case, based on OAS spreadsheets, and suggested reopening it.
Fachin intimidated Aras on the subject. In demonstrations held between May and June, the prosecution team asked the minister to unarchive the investigation and unify it with the other investigation. In addition, Aras asked that the case be returned to the PF for further investigation. Fachin authorized the requests. So last week, the two investigations were unified.
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The reopening comes amid several public frictions between Rodrigo Maia and President Jair Bolsonaro’s team, the mayor is considered an opponent of the Planalto Palace. Aras was appointed in command of the PGR by Bolsonaro, despite not competing for the triple internal voting list of the Federal Public Ministry, and has maintained a good relationship with the president in his performance.
Maia was contacted yesterday through her press office, but had not yet come forward as of press time.
