MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Brazilian ex-billionaire sentenced to 30 years in prison for corruption
Eike Batista was found guilty of paying around US$16.5 million in bribes to the then-Rio de Janeiro governor to gain an advantage in government contracts. A Brazilian businessman famous for amassing and then losing a multi-billion-dollar fortune has been convicted of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Eike Batista was found guilty of paying around US$16.5 million in bribes to the then-Rio de Janeiro governor to gain an advantage in government contracts. Ex-Gov. Sergio Cabral was also convicted — one of several corruption cases against Cabral, who is already in prison.
A federal judge in Rio de Janeiro signed the decision on Monday but it did not become widely known until Tuesday. Fernando Martins, a lawyer for Batista, complained the case against his client was vague and said that he would appeal, according to Brazilian media. The court said he will not begin serving his sentence while the appeal is pending. A lawyer for Cabral also said he would appeal.
The case is part an investigation into the laundering and hiding of about US$ 100 million in foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors allege that nearly US$ 80 million of that belonged to Cabral. The probe is one branch of Brazil's massive Car Wash investigation into the systematic trading of bribes and illegal campaign contributions to politicians in exchange for favors for companies.
An oil and mining magnate, Eike was once Brazil's richest man and was listed by Forbes magazine in 2011 as the world's eighth-richest person. By 2013, his fortune had crumbled amid debts in his energy sector companies.
Drama surrounded Batista's arrest last year on the corruption charges. Police officers initially went to Batista's home in Rio de Janeiro to serve the warrant, but he wasn't there. His lawyer said he was traveling abroad at the time. Despite his lawyer's assurances that he would turn himself in when his trip was concluded, federal police asked Interpol for help locating Batista and said he was briefly considered a fugitive. Four days after the initial attempt to arrest him, Batista was taken into custody as he walked off a commercial flight from New York.
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Read all commentsFUNNY! I always thought that G. Mendes was his buddy!
Jul 04th, 2018 - 10:19 am 0@:o))
Jul 04th, 2018 - 06:20 pm 0Right, but even Gilmar needs to keep a low profile now and then...If I were Eike, I wouldn't worry, I'm sure something ($$$???) can be negotiated...
@JB
Jul 06th, 2018 - 12:01 pm 0RE Pence visits Brazil...
“it reminded me of Hiltler and the Holocaust...nothing else.”
That's in the eye of the beholder, not in the article; it didn't occur to me at all. I do think the press are playing it up because of their dislike of Trump, but unlike you I think they are in the right now and were going too easy on Obama. It's perfectly true that some of those pictures of children are from Obama's era, although unlike with Trump, they were nearly all children who arrived at the border alone. Even so, the fact he was putting children in cages and imprisoning entire families until stopped by the courts is something that should have been more widely reported at the time. It also makes it very hard to believe he was not enforcing border security properly.
The press haven't said the families will never be reunited, but that the officials have not made any effort or records to ensure they can be, and also that no particular provision was made for caring for the kids before the policy was implemented. AFAIK the government has not denied any of this. I don't believe they intended to take the children away permanently, but since they didn't think it important enough to do proper planning, that may easily be the result.
As for the parents, I'm not suggesting they have no idea what awaits them, just that this family separation policy was new and they probably did not know about *that*.
RE Congress, why on earth would the Republicans give up a chance to criticise Obama over something? They don't need a majority to make a fuss, and in any case they had one by the end of his term. Even if you think they secretly supported his policies(!), that needn't have stopped them complaining as long as they still had Obama around to continue them. Now Trump is trying to override states and cities who want to be more lenient with immigrants. Neither side cares about the rights of states unless it suits them.
Do these American friends of yours work on the border or something?
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