STJ orders arrest of TO lawyer suspected of negotiating legal decisions

Fábio Bezerra was the target of operations Convergência, Toth and Madset by the Federal Police (PF), which investigate a scheme of bribes and negotiations and sales of court decisions in Tocantins.

Bezerra was arrested while walking along a busy avenue in the center of Palmas. He was ordered to stop and was taken to an unmarked vehicle. After passing through the police station, he was taken to the accommodation at the General Command Headquarters, in Palmas.

In a decision, Minister Og Fernandes stated that lawyer Fábio Bezerra de Melo Pereira was in an unknown and unknown location and that he was summoned by notice.

Fábio Bezerra de Melo's defense declares that he was surprised to receive a precautionary decision for preventive detention due to the absence of a personal summons at his home address, in a criminal case being processed at the STJ. "It also informs that the appropriate procedural measures will be provided for analysis and assessment by the learned Minister Rapporteur, considering that he has a correct address in this capital", says the note.

In one of the investigations, according to the MPF, between June 10, 2013 and May 19, 2017, Fábio Bezerra and his sister, Juliana Bezerra, would have acted together with their father, the former attorney general of Tocantins, Clenan Renaut de Melo Pereira, who would have violated his functional duty and requested retirement from his position after the investigations began.

The brothers allegedly were the channel to receive R$348,475.00 in bribes from a construction company. In 2018, the courts blocked R$120 million from the accounts of the Bezerra brothers and two other lawyers, suspected of working in a corruption scheme at Lajeado City Hall.

The group is being investigated for allegedly buying support from councilors in the approval of a new law related to the receipt of ICMS from the Hydroelectric Plant.

In the same year, they were arrested in a Civil Police operation, but were then released. Currently, the cases are being processed at the STJ, and several defendants and witnesses have given testimony.