Even after relatives of the former mayor of Sao Paulo and former federal deputy Paulo Maluf signing agreements that will generate the return of R $ 210 million to municipal coffers, the list of lawsuits moved against the politician remains long, almost 30 years after his last stay in the São Paulo administration (1993 to 1996). A survey conducted by Globo points out that the actions, both popular and administrative misconduct and damage to the purse, can generate fines of more than $ 2 billion. Most of this amount, about R $ 1.5 billion, concerns two important São Paulo road works: the Ayrton Senna tunnel and the extension of the then Avenida Água Espraiada (currently journalist Roberto Marinho), both in the South Zone.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, the then mayor, along with other actors, such as his political successor, Celso Pitta, killed in 2009, as well as contractors, set up a money deviation scheme that passed $ 300 million in values of the time. Part of this money was sent to the United States, Switzerland, England, Jersey Island and British Virgin Islands.
In the criminal level, Maluf was sentenced to 7 years and 9 months in prison, and the penalty has already been served. The civil action remains, filed by the Paulista MP and which was the object of non -pursuit of the 93 -year -old politician’s relatives. Maluf’s relatives were included in the action because they allegedly received part of these resources. With the agreement, there was no continuation of the process to find out if they would be declared guilty or innocent. About Paulo Maluf’s part, there is no outcome to this day.
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-As the former mayor never came to us to make any agreement, only his family, who was also part of the process (from the tunnel and the avenue), we maintained the action-says the attorney general of the municipality, Luciana Sant’ana Nardi.
Future charges
One of the main names in actions filed by the Public Prosecution Service against Maluf, prosecutor Silvio Antonio Marques, from the Public and Social Heritage Prosecutor’s Office, criticizes the delay in the end of the processes, many moved before his arrival at the MP at the beginning of the century. For him, however, the fact that the author is advanced (93 years) does not make future charges unfeasible, regardless of succession issues.
-We have already recovered almost R $ 1 billion and I will not rest until it charge the last penny that was diverted from the public coffers-says Marques, referring to past agreements with banks and other agents involved in cases of corruption linked to the former mayor.
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In another lawsuit, filed by then -councilor Maurício Faria, now retired counselor of the Municipal Court of Auditors (TCM), Maluf was ordered to pay R $ 417 million to the city for using, while he was mayor, a symbol (a clover) he also used in his election campaigns. As the amount was never paid, the municipal attorney general asked to court the attachment of 19 properties from Maluf and his family. The goods must go to auction, with no date to occur.
Sought, Maluf’s defense declined to comment. The lawyer of his family members, Eduardo Diamantino, said in a statement that “the agreement negotiated with MP-SP was voluntarily signed by family members to terminate legal demands in a collaborative way.”
Celso Pitta’s estate
He starts in several of the lawsuits against former Mayor Paulo Maluf, his political successor, Celso Pitta, who ruled the city between 1997 and 2000 and was secretary of finance in the previous period, died in 2009, a victim of cancer. To this day its inventory has not been completed due to the large amount of actions still underway. In these cases, his heirs, including his ex-wife and two children, began to respond in the name of his father.
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Last June 27, the São Paulo court complied with a request from Pitta’s inventor so that the former mayor’s estate can be declared insolvent. The reason was that the various convictions generated executions that found only one good on behalf of their heirs, an apartment in Rio de Janeiro inhabited by his first wife.
With the approval of the judiciary, the inventor of Celso Pitta has three months to propose the insolvency action, ending not only the inventory but excluding the name of the deceased in legal charges from three decades ago.
