Relator charges João Paulo Cunha with criminal activity in mensalão case

“I condemn the defendant, João Paulo Cunha, for passive corruption and money laundering; for receiving an improper advantage consisting of R$50,000, as well as malfeasance in that he misused public funds he had access to because of the office he occupied,” declared Supreme Court associate justice, Joaquim Barbosa, in the first part of his sentence (“voto”) last Thursday, August 16, in Penal Case 470, which is known as the big monthly allowance (“mensalão”).

When the mensalão scandal became public in 2005, João Paulo Cunha was a federal deputy and the office he occupied was president of the Chamber of Deputies. Cunha survived a vote to expel him from Congress (“cassação”). And then he was reelected in 2006 and again in 2010, with the result that he is one of the few mensalão defendants still in public office (in 2005, eleven of the defendants were federal deputies; today, besides Cunha, only two others are). He is also the only defendant running for office in this election cycle. He is a candidate for mayor of Osasco, SP.

According to justice Barbosa, the contracts that Cunha signed when he was president of the Chamber of Deputies with the SMPB advertising agency, owned by Marcos Valério, were illegal. “The contracts between the Chamber of Deputies and the ad agency just shoveled money to Valério and his partners, Cristiano Paz and Ramon Hollerbach, while the agency did practically nothing for the Chamber of Deputies,” said Barbosa.

The justice also accused Cunha of malfeasance in another contract with a firm called IFT that was supposed to work for the Chamber of Deputies. Instead, Barbosa claimed, the owner of IFT handled press and public relations on a personal level for Cunha.