The TRE-SP (Regional Electoral Court of ) unanimously accepted an appeal from () today and rejected an action that made him ineligible for abuse of political and economic power in the 2024 municipal elections.
The former candidate for Mayor and São Paulo was accused after promising to record videos in support of councilor candidates in exchange for donations to his campaign.
On occasion, to support the candidates. “Do you know someone who wants to be a councilor and is a candidate? What will this person do? They will send a Pix to my campaign, a donation, a Pix of R$5,000. They made this donation, I will send them the video. Click here on the form, register, the team will get in touch”, he said in a video published in September 2024.
Marçal was convicted in the first instance in February. The action was filed by the PSB and the coalition of Guilherme Boulos (PSOL), his opponent in the campaign.
At the time, he imposed a sentence of ineligibility for eight years due to abuse of political and economic power, misuse of the media and illicit fundraising, but he appealed.
In the trial this Thursday (6), the rapporteur stated that there was not enough evidence to convict the former candidate. Judge Cláudio Langroiva Pereira stated that the video in which Marçal asked for Pix has illegal content, but is insufficient to justify the conviction. He also considered that the defense proved the return of the amounts received.
According to the judge, it was not possible to identify how many donations were made to the campaign. “Although the campaign video contains the illicit proposal, the evidentiary elements uploaded to the file were not sufficient to demonstrate the extent of the disclosure and the volume of resources actually moved as a direct result of the offer or its concrete impact on the electoral campaign in an unbalanced way”, declared Pereira.
TRE-SP also began analyzing this Thursday. In this second action, also filed by the PSB, he was accused of creating a scheme to “cut” videos on social media. The party told the court that Marçal monetized voters who shared the excerpts on social media with gifts and cash prizes. In this case, he also appealed after becoming ineligible for eight years.
The rapporteur partially accepted the appeal. He rejected the conviction on charges of illicit fundraising and abuse of economic power, but maintained the punishment for misuse of the media and the sanction of eight years of ineligibility. The trial was suspended at the request of Judge Regis de Castilho and will resume on December 4th.
