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RIO – The Regional Electoral Court (TRE-RJ) formed a majority on Monday to convict the mayor of Rio, Marcelo Crivella, for being ineligible until 2026, but the trial was interrupted by a request for a hearing by judge Vitor Marcelo Aranha Afonso Rodrigues. . The judge, who took office last week, argued that he needed more time to learn about the process. According to the president of TRE-RJ, Cláudio Brandão de Oliveira, the trial will resume in Thursday’s session.
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The rapporteur Cláudio Luís Braga Dell’Orto voted for the conviction of Crivella for abuse of political power in an act with Comlurb officials aimed at requesting electoral support for his own son in the 2018 elections. In addition to the mayor’s ineligibility, his son Marcelo Hodge Crivella and the then candidate for state deputy Alessandro Costa for eight years from 2018, the rapporteur voted for a fine of R $ 106 thousand.
Five of the seven judges of the Court had fully accompanied the rapporteur when Vitor Marcelo Aranha requested a hearing. After the request for a hearing, the president of TRE-RJ, Cláudio Brandão, affirmed that he will also vote for the mayor’s ineligibility.
Vitor Marcelo Aranha, who was on the triple list of full member of the TRE-RJ, was elected to the position by President Jair Bolsonaro, who has the constitutional prerogative, after the list was endorsed by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) . According to a report in the magazine “Crusoé”, Vitor was a professor for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Republicans-RJ) in a preparatory course on Law. This year Flávio joined the Crivella party and supports the mayoress’s candidacy for reelection. Even if he is convicted and becomes ineligible, Crivella can maintain his candidacy through appeals to the TSE.
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Vitor Marcelo Aranha told the magazine “Crusoé” that the “election process (for TRE-RJ) is political,” and also said that the closeness to the Bolsonaro family and “the fact that he was a professor in Flávio and knew it weighed, yes “to fill the vacancy in the Court. Also according to the publication, Vitor Marcelo had already been supported by Flávio when he ran for president of the Rio de Janeiro section of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) in 2018.
‘Talk to Marcia’ does not yield sanction
Previously, the rapporteur Cláudio Dell’Orto had rejected a request from the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office for Crivella to be sentenced to ineligible for another event, in the pre-electoral period of the same year, known as “Talk to Marcia.” The five judges who voted also followed this opinion.
In voting on the event with Comlurb employees, Dell’Orto said that “you cannot turn a blind eye to reality” regarding the “use of the administrative machine by the candidates.” The event, presented by GLOBO in September 2018, brought together Comlurb employees to ask for votes from Crivella’s son, candidate for federal deputy Marcelo Hodge Crivella. The Electoral Public Ministry considered that the conduct was prohibited to a public agent, punishable by a fine and also with the revocation of the diploma. The deputy, however, did not request the cassation.
– Employees (of Comlurb) were deceived because they were attracted by a campaign act with the justification of discussing matters of interest to Comlurb. The organizers deliberately omitted that it was an electoral event – said the rapporteur in his vote.
Crivella was denounced in two separate actions, one by the PSOL and the other by the Regional Electoral Prosecutor’s Office. The PSOL action included the event on the Estácio court, while the request from the Electoral MP focused only on the “Talk to Marcia” event.
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The electoral deputy argued, in his closing arguments in both cases, that the mayor of Rio used the machinery of the municipal administration in an attempt to “influence the elections for the positions of federal deputy and state deputy.”
For the MP, the event “Café da Comunhão” held in the City Palace, City Hall, in July of that year, constituted an abuse of political power “in the use of human resources and in the promise of facilities to expedite the claims before various organs of the City Council “. The event was revealed by GLOBO.
At the event in question, Crivella led pastors and religious leaders to seek their advisers to expedite care and schedule surgery in public hospitals.
“It was a meeting to feed an electoral base composed of religious leaders, notoriously aligned with the Mayor, to whom the mayor offered facilities in the public administration in the name of a supposed divine predestination,” wrote the regional electoral attorney Silvana Batini, noting that the The same event helped boost the candidacy for federal deputy of Rubens Teixeira (Republicans), who received about 20 thousand votes and took the fifth alternate.
In support of the trial, the prosecutor Silvana Batini argued that the fulfillment of the promises made by Crivella in the meeting with the shepherds, in July 2018, “does not matter for the characterization of electoral illegal.
– The electoral offense is in the promise, in the offer and not in the delivery. The promises may not have been kept, but they were credible and that is why they are so serious. There were strong reasons to believe the mayor. He had competence and authority, since he spoke with the competence of his position, from within the City Council – said Batini.
For the rapporteur Cláudio Dell’Orto, however, the “electoral purpose” of the act in the City Palace has not been proven, a discussion that can be found in the TRE-RJ area.
The lawyer Alberto Sampaio, who served in the defense of Mayor Marcelo Crivella and his son, Marcelo Hodge Crivella, classified the accusations that the municipal administration put itself at the service of a religious group. The lawyer also argued that the servant Márcia da Rosa Pereira Nunes, mentioned by Crivella in the investigated meeting, had no “competence” to manipulate the helpline in the public network.
– Márcia has no jurisdiction over Sisreg, or the mayor. She was there to guide things like: what is the website, what are the documents. The mayor cannot suffer a “general responsibility” for each and every one of the actions carried out by his servants – he said.
