The
man who led a campaign to paint Dilma Rousseff as a corrupt
politician has drowned in his own fraud scandals.
A Brazilian
judge sentenced Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of the lower house
and mastermind behind the parliamentary coup against former President
Dilma Rousseff, to 15 years and four months in jail Thursday for
corruption charges.
The sentence
is the result of a criminal suit investigating Cunha for fraud
related to millions of dollars in kickbacks he received for the 2011
purchase of an oil field in the West African country of Benin by the
state-run oil company, Petrobras, which has been at the center of a
major anti-corruption probe in the South American country known as
Operation Car Wash.
Federal
Judge Sergio Moro handed down the sentence over charges of
corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. The former head of the
lower house has been held in pre-trial detention since last October.
"The
responsibility of a federal parliamentarian is enormous, and
therefore so is his guilt when he commits crimes," said
Moro. "There is no bigger crime than that of trying to use
one's parliamentary mandate and the sacred trust the people place in
it to obtain personal gain."
According to
Moro, Cunha received US$1.5 million in bribes for the Benin oil field
contract, which, according to an internal Petrobras investigation
reported by local media, resulted in US$77.5 million in losses for
the state-run oil company after no oil was found at the site.
The federal
public prosecutor's office had called for Cunha to be forced to pay
full damages to Petrobras, but Moro has signaled that a fine
equivalent to the US$1.5 million bribe he received will be ordered.
While
Cunha's defense team has said that they will appeal the decision,
Moro confirmed that the politician will remain behind bars while the
appeals process moves forward.
Despite
himself facing multimillion dollar bribery and fraud charges, Cunha
was a key architect in painting the impeachment process against Dilma
Rousseff as a campaign to root out government corruption.
A member of
unelected President Michel Temer’s PMDB party, Cunha is accused of
corruption, money laundering and tax evasion linked to raking in at
least US$5 million in illicit kickbacks between 2006 and 2012 and
hiding the wealth in Swiss bank accounts.
Cunha was
removed from his position as speaker of the lower house last
September after being suspended in May 2016 — just weeks after the
lower house pushed through the impeachment bid against Rousseff —
to face an impeachment process over accusations that he intimidated
lawmakers and hampered investigations. The Congress voted
overwhelmingly by 450 to 10 to remove the unpopular politician.
The
overwhelming decision to remove Cunha also stripped him of the
parliamentary immunity he long enjoyed, opening him up to the
corruption charges. Authorities arrested him at his apartment in
Brasilia last October over accusations he hid laundered money in
secret Swiss bank account while in office.
Despite the
power he has wielded over Brazilian politics, polling over the past
year has repeatedly unmasked Cunha as one of the most unpopular
politicians in the country, including among his own party.
Several
other top Temer allies have also been targeted in the Operation Car
Wash investigations that have led to the arrests of dozens of
politicans and economic elites over bribery schemes and corruption
linked to Petrobras.
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