The TRF-3 (Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region) acquitted four defendants accused of involvement in irregularities in contracts signed between construction companies and the Government of São Paulo for the construction of the northern section
The 5th Panel of the court unanimously recognized the prescription of the gang crime and, by majority, decided to acquit due to lack of evidence due to practices that violated the bidding process. The rapporteur, André Nekatschalow, voted to maintain the conviction, but was defeated by colleagues Paulo Fontes and Ali Mazloum.
The trial took place last November, and on December 18, the case became final (the possibilities for appeal were exhausted).
Benedito Aparecido Trida, Carlos Henrique Barbosa Lemos, Pedro da Silva and Laurence Casagrande Lourenço had been denounced in 2018, after Operation Pedra no Caminho, launched by the Federal Police as an offshoot of the one in São Paulo.
alleged overbilling of R$480 million “through the purposeful manipulation of quantities in contracts” that would have favored the construction companies OAS, Mendes Júnior and Isolux.
The now acquitted defendants held positions in construction companies and in the management of the then governor and current vice-president of the Republic (PSB). Lourenço of Logistics and Transport of the state. He also presided over Dersa (Desenvolvimento Rodoviário SA), a mixed-capital company responsible for the construction and maintenance of highways and other road services.
He and a half in 2018 as a result of the investigation.
In addition to him, Benedito Trida and Pedro da Silva were also Dersa employees. Silva took over as head of the road company after the management of Paulo Vieira de Souza, a well-known man who was convicted of irregularities in the administration of Dersa. At the time, Paulo Vieira was identified as a bribery operator for , then known as Alckmin.
Silva was also arrested at the time.
Work began on the northern section of the ring road named after the former governor of São Paulo Mário Covas in 2013. Construction was not fully completed, which should happen by the end of 2026.
In his vote for acquittal, Paulo Fontes states that “the materiality of the crime provided for in article 92 of Law 8,666/93 has not been sufficiently proven” (former Bidding Law). He argues that the jurisprudence “is that bidding crimes are only classified when there is actual damage to the Treasury, which has not been proven in this case.”
The other defendant now acquitted by the TRF-3 was Carlos Henrique Barbosa Lemos. He was an executive at and claimed to have paid bribes in 2006 for the campaign of the then PSDB candidate for government, . The amounts paid were supposedly consideration for the Rodoanel contracts.
In the first instance, the four had been sentenced to sentences ranging from five years to five and a half years of detention, in an initial semi-open regime.
