The Federal Police (PF) suspect that lawyer Roberto Zampieri, appointed as a “court lobbyist”, gave a Patek Phillipe watch and R$250,000 in cash to judge João Ferreira Filho, of the Court of Justice of Mato Grosso (TJ-MT ), as “a consideration or an advantage to be received by virtue of their public position”.
Ferreira Filho has been out of office since August, on suspicion of being linked to a state court sentence selling scheme.
The newspaper The State of S. Paulo requested statements from the judge, via TJ-MT and the Association of State Magistrates, but had not received a response until the publication of this text.
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Lawyer Flaviano Taques, investigated in the case, indicated that he will not comment, as he did not have access to the investigation. Valdoir Slapak, another person under investigation, said he was awaiting the outcome of the investigations before speaking out and said that he “always acted with the utmost honesty and transparency”.
Messages
According to the PF, Zampieri, shot dead last December in front of his office in Cuiabá (MT), maintained “quite intense and routine” contacts and dialogues with the judge. The investigation recovered messages with evidence of “requests and receipt of undue financial advantages”.
Details about Zampieri’s free passage in the state court and his relations with ministers’ offices of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) are contained in the decision by minister Cristiano Zanin, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Last Tuesday (26), Zanin put the PF on the streets to arrest another alleged sentencing lobbyist, Anderson Gonçalves.
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Andreson was a friend of Zampieri, who called him “the boy from Brasília” – in practice, he acted as a kind of correspondent for Zampieri in higher courts.
The lobbyists’ partnership is now the target of Operation Sisamnes, launched by the PF. On orders from Minister Zanin, federal agents searched the addresses of three advisors from the STJ ministers’ offices on Tuesday. They were removed from their duties.
Judge João Ferreira Filho was also the target of searches in the operation, as was his court colleague, judge Sebastião de Moraes Filho. Both are being investigated, both by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and by the PF, for their “intimate friendship” with Zampieri, which allegedly resulted in the sale of sentences.
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Moraes Filho and Ferreira have already been removed from their positions since August, by order of the CNJ, in an administrative decision. Now, by Zanin’s decision, they will wear electronic ankle bracelets.
Images
The PF’s suspicion about the luxury watch that Zampieri intended to give to the judge arose from an exchange of messages and images between the lawyer and the magistrate, on November 8, 2023, a month before the murder of the “court lobbyist”.
According to investigators, “demonstrating a vehement close relationship” with the judge, Zampieri said he would take the Patek Philippe so that the judge could appreciate it. “I’ll take this one for you to see, tomorrow or Friday.”
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The messages on Zampieri’s “bomb cell phone” – found next to the lawyer’s body after his murder – indicate that the intention to present the judge with a high-value watch had emerged months earlier.
In a dialogue with another person under investigation, Valdoir Slapak, the lawyer sent images of another Patek Philippe. Zampieri wrote that he would “gift this watch to our friend”. This occurred on August 25th. In a statement, Valdoir Slapak said that, “given the confidential nature of the process, he has not yet had access to the files and, therefore, does not have detailed information about the case”.
“Plausibility”
A month later, on September 22 last year, Zampieri again mentioned the “luxury item” to Valdoir. According to Zanin, the “plausibility” of the PF thesis, that “he” and “our friend” would correspond, in the intercepted dialogues, to judge João Ferreira Filho “is quite indicative in the records and cannot be ignored”.
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This was one of the factors that led the minister to order electronic monitoring and searches of the judge’s house and office.
