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Mariana Ferrer case: judge Rudson Marcos presided over trial session that acquitted accused of rape

Mariana Ferrer case: judge Rudson Marcos presided over the trial session that acquitted the accused for rape / Credit: reproduction

Unanimously, the National Council of Justice (CNJ) imposed this Tuesday (14/11) a warning sentence on judge Rudson Marcos, of the Court of Justice of the State of Santa Catarina (TJSC), for his conduct at the hearing that collected the testimony from influencer Mariana Ferrer in case of sexual violence. In the collegiate's assessment, there was an omission by the magistrate in conducting the instruction hearing.

 

The warning, established by the rapporteur, is the mildest sanction in the Organic Law of the National Judiciary (Loman), which must be applied “privately, in writing, in the case of negligence in fulfilling the duties of the position”.

 

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The decision was made in the judgment of the Disciplinary Administrative Process (PAD) that investigates the magistrate's conduct in an investigation hearing in 2020. In the assessment of the rapporteur, counselor Salise Sanchotene, there was different treatment in relation to Ferrer and Aranha's lawyer.

 

 

“I have been a criminal magistrate for 30 years and, if I were in a hearing like this, at the next hearing I would start warning the lawyer. That’s what a criminal magistrate is supposed to do when conducting a hearing, but that’s not what happened,” she said. Sanchotene argued that she did not opt for compulsory removal because the judge no longer works in a criminal court. After the negative repercussions of the hearing, the magistrate voluntarily asked to change the court.

 

In this case, the influencer accuses businessman André de Camargo Aranha of doping and raping her in December 2018. Aranha was acquitted in both instances. Mariana Ferrer appealed the case to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and Superior Court of Justice (STJ). The video of the hearing was released by The Intercept Brasil in 2020.

 

At the hearing, Aranha's lawyer, Cláudio Gastão da Rosa Filho, presented photos published by Ferrer on social media and classified them as “gynecological”, stating that he would never have a daughter of “Mariana's level”. After the influencer cried with the statements, the lawyer told Ferrer that “there is no point in coming with your disguised, false crying and all that crocodile talk”.

 

“Your Excellency, I am begging for respect, not even the accused are treated the way I am being treated. For the love of God, people, what is this?”, said the influencer when addressing judge Rudson Marcos.

 

For Rodrigo Collaço, the judge's lawyer, the warning penalty is unfair. According to him, the process was based on fake news: “The request to open an investigation is based on a montage of the hearing, information that the judge acquitted the defendant for culpable rape and there is also a cartoon in which the judge hugs the prosecutor with a pocket full of money. This lie formed the national consensus against this magistrate, who was threatened with death, and that his children had to leave school,” said Collaço.

 

The decision on the penalty occurred unanimously. However, advisors Richard Pae Kim, Giovanni Olsson and Jane Granzoto Torres da Silva disagreed with the opening of the PAD, but agreed with the warning penalty. In Pae Kim's understanding, the magistrate was not negligent in his functional duty and should not be solely responsible for what happens in a hearing.

 

The rapporteur was fully accompanied by the president of the CNJ, minister Luis Roberto Barroso, the magistrate Luis Felipe Salomão, and the counselors Marcio Luiz Coelho de Freitas, Vieira de Mello Filho, Mauro Martins, Pablo Barreto, João Paulo Schoucair, Marcos Vinícius Jardim and Marcello Terto and Bandeira de Mello.

 

The case is being processed under number 0003722-66.2023.2.00.0000 at the National Council of Justice.