Ronnie Lessa received 600 reais and bought property in Barra in the year he killed Marielle.

The defense team for police chief Rivaldo Barbosa submitted a request to Minister Alexandre de Moraes to add documents to the case concerning the assassination of Marielle Franco that prove the increase in the assets of her killer, Ronnie Lessa, in 2018, the year the councilwoman was murdered along with her driver, Anderson Gomes.

One of the documents is bank proof showing that, in that year, he had credits in his account totaling almost 600 reais. 

The other document consists of proof that, also in 2018, Ronnie Lessa acquired a property worth over 400 reais, located at Avenida Lúcio Costa, 3.200, house 57, next to Jair Bolsonaro's house, in the Vivendas da Barra condominium.

"Given the foregoing, and considering the existence of a new, relevant, and influential fact concerning the merits of the present case, the defense requests that the attached documents and their information be considered in the judgment to be rendered by this Honorable First Chamber of the Supreme Federal Court," highlights the petition filed on Monday and signed by lawyers Marcelo Ferreira de Souza and Felipe Daleprane Freire de Mendonça.

These documents were found in the report of a Civil Police investigation into money laundering in Rio de Janeiro, Police Inquiry 901-00434/2019. In this inquiry, in addition to Ronnie Lessa, Dênnis Lessa, the assassin's brother, and Alexandre Motta de Souza are indicted.

Alexandre is the owner of the property where the Civil Police found 117 components for restricted-use rifles and accessories such as sights and silencers, in addition to 360 rounds of ammunition and a .22 caliber weapon. Ronnie Lessa was the real owner of all of this.

Dennis Lessa was also indicted for concealing his brother's assets. In 2018, he transferred ownership of the house in the Vivendas da Barra condominium, which he had acquired in 2015, to Ronnie Lessa. 

The deed was drawn up at the 28th Notary Office of Rio de Janeiro on November 27, 2018, for the amount of R$ 432,1, less than the R$ 850 paid three years earlier. The police found the deed at one of Ronnie Lessa's addresses when they carried out the search and seizure operation.

Without this operation, it would be much more difficult to uncover this evidence of Lessa's asset growth, since the real estate transaction was not recorded in the Land Registry.

The defense team for police chief Rivaldo Barbosa has requested that Alexandre de Moraes take a series of measures to try to demonstrate that Lessa lied in his plea bargain testimony. 

Last week, in response to one of these measures, the Federal Police reported that they found no conversations with Marielle Franco on Rivaldo Barbosa's cell phone. However, the police chief's defense stated that the Federal Police only searched for conversations starting in October 2018, seven months after the councilwoman's assassination.

Rivaldo himself, in his testimony before the Supreme Federal Court (STF), said that he had a good relationship with Marielle and therefore had no interest in participating in a plot to kill her. The lawyers are still studying whether it is worthwhile to appeal, given that there is more robust evidence in favor of their client.

One piece of evidence is Lessa's asset growth. Another would be the assassin's relationship with former city councilman Cristiano Girão, who was arrested after the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Militias, which had then-Rio de Janeiro state deputy Marcelo Freixo as rapporteur, at the time advised by Marielle Franco.

Rivaldo's defense argues that the Federal Police ignored the line of investigation that would point to Girão as a possible mastermind. Girão and Lessa are defendants in the case concerning the death of militia member André Henrique da Silva Souza, known as André Zóio, who had previously been a police officer. According to the case, Girão hired Lessa to kill the rival militia member.

Lessa's asset growth in 2018 is important because it raises a significant question about who actually ordered Marielle's assassination. For the Federal Police and the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, it was the State Court of Auditors advisor Domingos Brazão and his brother Chiquinho, a former federal deputy.

Lessa said that the Brazão family promised him an advantage in an area that would be illegally occupied. Marielle Franco allegedly mobilized popular movements to oppose this occupation. 

The promised advantage for Lessa would be command of a militia in those locations, through which he would profit from selling protection and illegally exploiting services such as transportation and cable TV.

In the criminal world, however, it's hard to believe that a hitman would wait to be paid in the future. Logic and precedents point to a very different situation. A hitman receives payment upfront – at least half – and doesn't wait for promises, since he doesn't know if he'll be alive the day after the crime.

Consider, for example, what happened to Adriano da Nóbrega, the former captain who died in a police operation in Bahia.