White-Collar Crimes: Is Impunity in Brazil a Myth or a Reality?

According to the myth, members of the political, financial or educational elite in Brazil who commit a crime are rarely convicted, and, if so, are almost never put behind bars.

In reality, however, convictions of members of the Brazilian “elite” accused of crimes have been extremely severe.

Penalties for crimes involving the sexual abuse of minors have been severe, regardless of the social status of the accused: usually, 15 years of jail based, in several cases, solely on the victim's testimony. Such cases currently have a very high percentage of criminal charges. The understanding of sexual engagement with minors in Brazil includes light touch in sexual areas of the body; it is considered rape even without intercourse. The alleged victim’s consent is irrelevant.

Recently, in a famous case, an Olympic coach was accused of inappropriately touching four young athletes during training, something which was alleged to have occurred in an open gym where all parents could watch, and was sentenced to 109 years of imprisonment, plus a heavy fine. The appeal claiming his innocence is yet to be judged.

Other cases exist involving doctors who are accused of abusing several women during treatments, like one involving a very famous, rich doctor called Roger Abdelmassih, who was sentenced to 278 years of imprisonment for the charge of raping 48 of his patients.

In another case that caught the media’s attention, a medical doctor was accused of influencing a senior patient, who had no sons, to grant him his inheritance, change his will and exclude his nephews. Once the patient died, the former beneficiaries made all sorts of accusations, claiming that the doctor maliciously influenced the patient to obtain his fortune. Despite experts attesting that the patient was in perfect state of mind, the court sentenced the doctor to seven years of imprisonment. When the punishment was announced, the Judge said: “most defendants in my court are poor and didn’t have access to proper education, coming from the most vulnerable parts of the population; considering that the accused is a doctor, belonging to the elite, he must be exemplarily punished.” During the appeal, the state court ignored the defendant's experts and confirmed the conviction in a very harsh manner.

The courts have also been extremely harsh when it comes to crimes that involve public financing. In Brazil, the Ruanet Law (Law 8.313 of 1991) helps to foster cultural preservation and development. Companies can benefit from tax deductions if they invest in cultural events for the benefit of the population.

Recently, two young entrepreneurs in the entertainment business were convicted to 17 years in jail and a fine of USD100,000 for obtaining federal financing via the deduction of taxes from their clients (companies) and, as the Public Prosecutor claims, deviating part of the money to their own benefit using false receipts.

The two brothers, however, were not excused of the crimes allegedly committed – their appeal pends judgment.

Bank frauds have been severely punished as well. As an example, there has been a case in which a bank account manager was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment under the accusation of having made 194 withdrawals of USD100 from 27 clients of the bank who had asked her to close their accounts. The accusation claimed that she kept credit cards that clients returned to the bank, “pretending” to destroy them; at the same time, as asserted by the Public Prosecutor, she accompanied clients to the ATM, where they would withdraw their remaining balance, and “noticed the clients’ passwords” as they used the ATM. After some days, the correspondence addresses of the clients were changed, and she used the supposedly destroyed cards and their passwords to make small withdrawals of USD100, using credit granted by the bank – the accounts were never closed after clients returned their cards.

In 2008, the Federal Criminal Court of São Paulo (first grade of jurisdiction) judged an iconic tax evasion case, imposing a 98-year jail sentence on a woman who ran a famous and fancy department store (the Daslu case) and had been accused of tax fraud when importing goods. Before her appeal was judged, she died of cancer.

It is worth mentioning that the Brazilian criminal system provides a “way out” for defendants: if they pay the total amount of the tax, including very heavy penalties, the crime is extinguished, even if the payment is made after the conviction is definitive.

The Brazilian penal system became a means of increasing government revenue, prioritising payment instead of criminal punishment. The ethics are questionable: those who have money do not face conviction.

The administrators of a non-profit hospital created by a religious institution decided to create a private health insurance plan as another source of income for the hospital since the public health system was in deficit. The hospital then collapsed, and was not able to grant treatment to the population. The local government decided to intervene, declaring an emergency, and assumed its administration for a certain period.

From one day to the next, the health plan administrators could not treat those who had private insurance in their own facilities.

The problem happened because some expenses incurred through the private health plan giving treatment in other private hospitals were charged to the hospital during the period of government intervention.
The administrators, who were volunteers and did not receive a penny, were convicted under the charge of embezzlement committed by the health plan against the hospital and were each sentenced to eight years in jail and a fine of USD200,000.

In the last example, Sergio Cabral, the former Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro and ex-Senator, has been convicted 22 times, amounting to more than 400 years’ imprisonment, under charges of deviating public funds and money laundering. He was in jail for more than six years (provisional arrest) and his criminal processes are not yet finished, with appeals yet to be judged. He is now under house arrest with a monitoring bracelet. Other politicians face similar criminal convictions.

These are just a few examples of many where members of the Brazilian elite have been severely punished by the justice system.