The TRF-4 (Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region) decided this Wednesday (6) to keep Diogo Castor de Mattos in the position of public prosecutor in 2019, as part of the process in which he admits having ordered the installation of a billboard praising the country in 2019. .
Unanimously, the 12th Panel of the TRF-4 denied (Federal), which intended to reverse the decision in favor of Castor de Mattos.
Federal judges Antônio César Bochenek, Gisele Lemke and João Pedro Gebran Neto voted against the MPF’s appeal, which was signed by the public prosecutor Mauro Cichowski dos Santos, from Rio Grande do Sul.
The session was held virtually, when votes are entered into the system, without debate.
With this Wednesday’s decision, the November 2023 sentence of substitute judge Thais Sampaio da Silva Machado, of the 1st Federal Court of Curitiba, is valid, which allowed him to continue in public service.
In a trial session held in 2021, the CNMP (National Council of the Public Ministry) had decided to apply the penalty of dismissal to Castor de Mattos for hiring the billboard. By 6 votes to 5, the body understood that the prosecutor committed an act of administrative improbity.
Due to the lifetime of the position, the penalty of dismissal is not applied immediately. After the CNMP’s decision, the then attorney general delegated to a member of the MPF the task of filing a public civil action for the loss of Castor de Mattos’ position, which occurred in July 2022.
In November 2023, in the ruling on the public civil action, judge Thais Sampaio da Silva Machado highlighted changes in the Administrative Improbity Law and stated that the new legislation could only reach Castor de Mattos if he had contracted the billboard with resources from the public treasury, the that did not occur. The MPF’s appeal against the sentence, judged this Wednesday, was filed in January this year.
The billboard cost R$4,100 and had the image of nine Lava Jato prosecutors accompanied by the following text: “Welcome to [sic] Republic of Curitiba – land of Operation Lava Jato – the investigation that changed the country. Here the law is fulfilled. March 17th, five years of Operation Lava Jato – Brazil Thanks”.
It was installed on land on Avenida Rocha Pombo, at the exit access to Afonso Pena International Airport, in the Curitiba region.
