The judge of the 1st Electoral Zone of São Paulo Tiago Ducatti Lino Machado received a complaint from the Public Ministry and opened a case against TV presenter Carlos Roberto Massa, known as Ratinho, for the alleged crime of “political violence against women”.
According to the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office, on December 15, 2021, during a program on Rádio Massa FM, Ratinho commented on a bill authored by federal deputy Natália Bonavides (PT-RN) and made statements “with the aim of embarrassing and humiliating the parliamentarian, using mentions of contempt and discrimination regarding her condition as a woman”. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the presenter’s intention was to “hinder the performance of her elective mandate” by Natália.
O Estadão asked Ratinho for a demonstration. The space is open. In the Federal Police investigation, which investigated the case, the presenter confirmed the statements. He claimed it was his “style” and a way to generate an audience.
In the complaint against Ratinho, the Prosecutor’s Office highlighted expressions he used when referring to Natália. “Don’t you have anything to do, my daughter? Go wash clothes, sew your husband’s pants, his underwear. Because it’s stupid to want to change this kind of thing (…), this idiot comes to do this kind of thing!” At another point, he said: “We had to eliminate these crazy people. Can’t we get a machine gun?” And he concluded: “Ugly as a devil too, our lady”.
The TV presenter was referring, at the time, to a project by the deputy to change the Civil Code, replacing the expressions “husband and wife” with neutral terms (such as “couples” or “family”) in the celebration of civil marriage. According to the text, the objective was to include same-sex couples, preventing LGBT couples from being forced to hear terms that do not represent their union.
The Electoral MP made an addition to the complaint, requesting the inclusion of the request to set a minimum amount to repair the moral damages caused to Natália, in the amount of R$ 1 million – based on article 387, item IV, of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
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The investigation was opened by representation from the Senate’s Human Rights and Participatory Legislation Committee. The PF took statements from the parliamentarian and the presenter.
After completing the initial steps, the Public Electoral Ministry initially promoted the archiving of the investigation, which was approved by the Court of the 2nd Electoral Zone of São Paulo on April 11, 2023.
Natália filed a writ of mandamus with the Regional Electoral Court of São Paulo, which, on October 9, 2024, invalidated the archiving decision.
The Court ordered the case to be sent to the 2nd Coordination and Review Chamber of the Federal Public Ministry for reanalysis, as it understood that the sealing of the case “had not considered the completeness of the facts and evidence, notably expressions of a misogynistic nature”.
Meeting on December 12, 2025, the 2nd Chamber of the MPF decided not to approve the archiving, considering that “the body of evidence contained sufficient evidence of criminal authorship and materiality, characterizing the archiving as premature”.
The decision of the ministerial review body highlighted that Ratinho’s statements, analyzed in their context, constitute, in theory, the crime of political gender violence, and determined the appointment of another prosecutor for the case.
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“The just cause (for the action) unfolds in proving the materiality of the crime and the existence of sufficient evidence of authorship”, pointed out judge Tiago Ducatti Lino Machado, from the 1st Electoral Zone. For him, the absence of any of these elements requires the rejection of the complaint, in accordance with article 395, item III, of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
“The materiality of the alleged crime, political violence against women, has, for this preliminary phase, been sufficiently demonstrated”, emphasized the judge. “The existence of the statements is uncontroversial, proven by the recording of the radio broadcast attached to the case and by its transcription,” he said.
For Tiago Ducatti, “the signs that the accused’s conduct conforms to this criminal type are present”.
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According to him, “the expressions ‘go wash clothes, sew your husband’s pants, his underwear’ and ‘this idiot comes to do that kind of thing!’ constitute, in theory, an act of humiliation and embarrassment that uses a clear disregard for the condition of women”.
“Such statements refer to a gender stereotype that relegates women to the domestic space and delegitimizes their presence and actions in the public and political sphere”, continued Ducatti.
For the judge, “the suggestion that the parliamentarian should dedicate herself to domestic tasks instead of carrying out her mandate is a direct attack on her legitimacy as an elected representative, based on a discriminatory view of social gender roles”.
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Furthermore, the judge considered, “the statement ‘we had to eliminate these crazy people… can’t we get a machine gun?’, even if made in a context that the accused claims to be ‘stylish’ or ‘jocular’, has an intimidating and threatening potential that cannot be ignored at this stage”.
“The suggestion of physical violence as a response to parliamentary action, regardless of the final intention, can be interpreted as a form of embarrassment and threat”, wrote Tiago Ducatti.
According to the judge, “the specific purpose of hindering the performance of the elective mandate is also evidenced in the victim’s testimony, who reported having felt the need to change her routine, cancel schedules and reinforce her personal security as a direct consequence of the accused’s statements and the repercussions they generated”.
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The judge assessed that “the signs of authorship, in turn, are unequivocal”. For him, the presenter’s justifications, “that it was his ‘style’ and a way of generating an audience, constitute a matter of merit that must be deepened during the procedural investigation, under the scrutiny of the adversary system, and are not sufficient to rule out, at this moment, the admissibility of the accusation”.
“There is, therefore, the presence of a minimum factual and evidentiary substratum that gives plausibility to the accusation formulated. It is not clear, in plan, any of the hypotheses of preliminary rejection of the complaint provided for in article 395 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: the piece is not inept; the procedural assumptions and conditions of the action are present; and, as exhaustively demonstrated, there is just cause for the exercise of the criminal action”, he stated.
