STJ accepts new action against judge accused of selling decisions

The Special Court of the Superior Court of Justice (STF) decided to accept the allegation of corruption, money laundering and formation of a criminal organization filed against a judge of the Court of Justice of Bahia (TJ-BA) and four others investigated in the scope of the Faroeste Operation . The operation was launched by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) in November 2019, as part of the investigation into the existence of an alleged scheme to sell judicial decisions by four judges from the Bahian court. According to MPF Deputy Attorney General Ana Borges Coelho Santos, Operation Faroeste “revealed a picture of the laceration of the pillars of the Bahian justice system, putting in check the impartiality and morality that should guide the judiciary [magistratura]”. Also according to the sub-prosecutor, the evidence already collected supported the presentation of ten other complaints in addition to the one accepted this Thursday (11) – many of them, including, accepted by the STJ itself. Among those denounced today are judge Maria da Graça Osório, from the TJ-BA, and businessman Adailton Maturino dos Santos, whom the MPF accuses of having created the alleged “criminal scheme” to regularize illegal lands in western Bahia and, then sell them, “gaining spurious gains”. “Adailton Maturino’s plan, logically, was only possible with the co-option of magistrates from the TJ-BA, highlighting, in the hypothesis, the disembargator Maria da Graça Osório”, said the deputy prosecutor, noting that the investigators have already gathered evidence that , between July 2013 and April 2014, the businessman and the judge spoke by phone on at least 54 occasions. At the time, the Bahian court was analyzing a process to regularize an area of ​​43 thousand hectares in the west of Bahia and registered in the name of José Valter Dias, a rubber worker who, according to the MPF, served as orange in the scheme, having more than 366 thousand hectares of land in his name (each hectare corresponds approximately to the measurements of an official soccer field). With the decision to receive the new complaint, the Special Court of the STJ kept the judge Maria da Graça removed from office until the judgment of the merits of the criminal action. In addition to the judge and the businessman, the lawyer and wife of Adailton, Geciane Souza Maturino dos Santos, became defendants for yet another complaint; businessman Dirceu Di Domenico, accused of financing the actions of the investigated group, and Karla Janayna Leal Vieira, Maria da Graça’s niece.

Agência Brasil