STF Minister determines that Senator Chico Rodrigues will be removed for three months | National newspaper

In the decision, Minister Luís Roberto Barroso reproduced the policemen’s account of the search and seizure, this Wednesday (14), at the home of Senator Chico Rodrigues, in Boa Vista.

The Federal Police had already found R $ 10,000 and US $ 6,000 in the safe in Chico Rodrigues’ room when the senator asked if he could go to the bathroom. One delegate said yes, but that he would have to accompany the senator. It was at that moment that the police officer noticed a large volume, rectangular in shape, on the back of Senator Chico Rodrigues’ tunic, who was wearing blue shorts, like pajamas, and a yellow shirt.

The deputy then suspected that the senator was hiding money in his clothes. He asked what was in the shorts. The senator got quite scared and said there was nothing.

The delegate then decided to search for the senator. According to the report, at first, bundles of money were found inside her underwear, near her buttocks, amounting to R $ 15 thousand.

Soon after, at the office, the police asked the senator if there were more amounts of cash. The third time he was interrogated – very angry, according to the report – Chico Rodrigues reached into his underwear and took out other bundles of money, which totaled R $ 17,900. Police re-searched the senator and found another 250 reais in underwear.

The money on the buttocks was revealed this Wednesday by the magazine “Crusoé”. Chico Rodrigues could have been arrested on the spot, had he not been a senator. The constitution provides for parliamentary immunity. The senator could only be arrested for a flagrant heinous crime.

In the representation before the Supreme Court, the Federal Police indicated evidence of a crime in flagrante delicto and requested his preventive detention, in addition to his dismissal. The Attorney General of the Republic defended home collection with electronic monitoring.

Barroso saw no evidence of a crime in the act and rejected the arrest, but decided to remove Chico Rodrigues from his position and prohibit him from communicating with the other investigated: “The specific gravity of the crimes investigated also indicates the need to guarantee public order. The senator would be using his parliamentary function to divert money destined to face the largest pandemic in the last 100 years, at a time of severe shortage of public resources and when the country already has more than 150,000 deaths from the disease. ”

Chico Rodrigues will be out of the Senate for 90 days, a renewable term. The seized money is available to the courts. According to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Union, which also acts in the investigations, around R $ 20 million have been diverted from the public coffers.

The investigators’ suspicion is that the senator was involved in a price premium scheme in the purchase of equipment for health facilities and rapid tests to detect Covid-19. The purchases were made by the Roraima Health Department.

According to investigations, the gang diverted money from parliamentary amendments to companies contracted by the state government through fraud or waivers from bidding. These companies would distribute the bribe. Other politicians would also be part of the same scheme.

According to the Police, one of the nuclei of the investigation involves Senator Chico Rodrigues, Quantum Empreendimentos em Saúde, his partner, the senator’s parliamentary adviser and her husband – designated as the senator’s operator -, in addition to the then Secretary of Health and a server public, “all acting in divisions of tasks, in clear characteristics of criminal organization.”

The investigation indicates that the server of the Ministry of Health who denounced the scheme is Francisvaldo de Melo Paixão, a server that he kept in office, despite the will of the Secretary of Health himself, dedicated to monitoring the execution of his parliamentary amendments.

In the report sent to the Supreme Court, the PF says that “the Quantum company has as a partner Mr. Roger Henrique Pimentel, who apparently is married to Sandrea de Araújo Xaud, sister of Samara de Araújo Xaud, parliamentary assistant in the senator’s office Chico Rodrigues ”.

The police say there are indications that Chico Rodrigues has used the political influence inherent in his public function to favor, within the scope of the contracts signed by the Roraima Health Secretariat, private companies linked to him, directly or indirectly, that divert money earmarked for Fighting Covid-19.