June 27 (UPI) -- Brazil's Public Ministry said the attorney general has charged President Michel Temer with corruption after an investigation revealed hefty bribe payments.
Attorney General Rodrigo Janot on Monday filed a complaint
to the Supreme Federal Court in which he accused Temer and his federal
deputy Rodrigo Rocha Loures of passive corruption for receiving about
$150,000 in bribes from Joesley Batista, a food company business leader.
Janot seeks damages of about $3 million from Temer and about
$600,000 from Rocha Loures, as well as their dismissal from public
service. Janot said bribe payments Temer and Rocha Loures received
within a nine-month period could reach up to $11 million.
"The
denunciation was based on criminal investigation that proved the
materiality and the authorship of the crime of passive corruption," the
Public Ministry said in a statement. "In addition to the conviction for
passive corruption, the attorney general seeks compensation for the
transindividual damages caused ... since the damages resulting from
corruption are diffused, difficult to quantify. He also calls for the
loss of civil service for the holders of public office -- public
employment or elective office -- for having violated their duties
towards the state and society."
A Supreme Federal Court justice must decide if Brazil's
lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, can vote on whether
Temer should be tried.
The case against Temer initiated in May after a Brazilian newspaper reported it obtained recordings of a conversation
between Temer and Batista, who secretly recorded the discussion. Temer
purportedly endorsed the executive's hush money payments to silence
jailed politician Eduardo Cuhna as a potential witness in a corruption
investigation.
In the recording, Batista said he was paying Cuhna money to
keep silent and Temer said he would have to keep up those payments, the
recording purportedly shows. Batista recorded the conversation as part
of a plea bargain with prosecutors related to the massive Petrobras
corruption scandal.
Temer, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, replaced former President Dilma Rousseff in August 2016 when the Federal Senate voted to remove her from office over accusations she broke budget laws.
In November, she accused Temer of taking a $295,000 bribe
she was initially accused of taking. Her lawyers said documents showed
the bribe was transferred directly into the general campaign finance
fund of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, to which Temer belongs.
****By Andrew V. Pestano
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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