The Justice of Rio de Janeiro has ruled a report of embezzlement against US Congressman George Santos in Brazil as classified. The Republican, recently sworn in by a district of New York, confessed to the police that he'd paid for the purchase of some clothes in a small store in Niterói (RJ), in 2008, with stolen and bad checks.
The case had been archived in June last year since the Justice could not locate the defendant. The State Prosecution Service, however, asked for the lawsuit to be reopened at the beginning of this month, after the politician, born to Brazilian parents, was elected congressman in the US and then exposed in a report by The New York Times about a series of lies in his resume.
The lawsuit was unfiled on the 11th, and Santos hired a lawyer, Jonymar Vasconcelos, who requested that the legal action be placed under legal secrecy. This Thursday (18), after a favorable opinion from the Prosecution Service, Judge Clarice da Matta e Fortes, of the 2nd Criminal Court of Niterói, accepted the request.
She also accepted that court procedures be done via the internet, asking for the email address and WhatsApp contacts of those involved.
Santos pleaded guilty to the crime of embezzlement to the police in November 2010. He said he stole the checkbook from a man his mother worked for. On social media, he expressed regret and wrote that he wanted to pay for the damage caused.
Recently, however, he publicly denied having passages through the Brazilian courts. "I am not a criminal here [USA], in Brazil, or in any jurisdiction in the world", he told the New York Post, in the same interview in which he admitted having lied several times on his resume to deceive voters during the campaign.
The victim at the Niterói store was the then salesman Carlos Bruno Simões, 39, now a partner in a Japanese restaurant. In an interview with Folha last month, he said he was surprised to discover that Santos had become a US congressman and said he was interested in pursuing the complaint.
Translated by Cassy Dias