Tucano Mensalão scandal: Minas Gerais Public Prosecutor's Office consults Attorney General's Office about Valério's plea bargain request.

Mines 247 - The Public Prosecutor's Office (MP-MG) is awaiting a decision from the Attorney General of the Republic, Rodrigo Janot, regarding the plea bargain request from businessman Marcos Valério Fernandes in the case investigating the "mensalão tucano" (a political corruption scandal). According to prosecutor Leonardo Barbabela, the official letter was sent to the Attorney General because the plea bargain involves "public officials with privileged jurisdiction."
The Attorney General's office told G1 that it cannot provide any information because the matter is confidential.

"We informed [the Attorney General's Office] that Marcos Valério approached the Public Prosecutor's Office to offer a plea bargain regarding facts involving ongoing cases in the state of Minas Gerais, under the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, but mentioned that he also had facts involving the jurisdiction of the Supreme Federal Court," stated Barbabela. 

In exchange for the plea bargain, lawyer Jean Robert Kobayashi reported that he requested Valério's transfer to the Association for the Protection and Assistance of Convicts (APAC) in Santa Luzia and a reduction in his sentence in cases pending in Minas Gerais. Currently, the businessman is imprisoned at the Nelson Hungria Penitentiary in Contagem.

Valério, sentenced to 37 years in prison in the PT's mensalão scandal, has been incarcerated in a closed regime since 2013. Currently, he is facing trial in the PSDB's mensalão scandal, which is being heard in the first instance court of Minas Gerais. According to the indictment, the scheme allegedly diverted funds to the electoral campaign of Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB), who was running for re-election as governor of the state in 1998. The PSDB member was convicted in the first instance and is appealing the decision.

The businessman is also a defendant in a case related to Operation Lava Jato, which investigates a corruption scheme at Petrobras. The court accepted the charges filed by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) for the crime of money laundering.

The plea bargain could compromise Aécio.

Valério allegedly promised the Minas Gerais Public Prosecutor's Office to hand over original documents related to loans made by Banco Rural, supposedly to finance electoral campaigns and corruption schemes involving the PSDB party in Minas Gerais. He was allegedly encouraged by the defense of the ousted senator Delcídio do Amaral (independent-MS) to make a plea bargain so that the parliamentarian would have more evidence to prove his accusation in Operation Lava Jato that there was an alleged manipulation of bank data. This way, Delcídio would secure more benefits in reducing his sentence. This is what sources told the Minas Gerais newspaper O Tempo last month.

After being mentioned by informants in the Lava Jato corruption scandal, including Delcídio, the national president of the PSDB party, Senator Aécio Neves, may have his name mentioned again, this time by Valério, precisely because of his encouragement of the defense of the ousted parliamentarian. In his testimony, Delcídio stated that Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG), then governor of Minas Gerais, acted to alter data obtained from Banco Rural by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI). 

The businessman claimed to have documents to prove the accusations, the main one being a set of files and bank statements that would show the scenario of loans made at Banco Rural and which were allegedly manipulated before being handed over to the Postal Service CPI in 2005, as Delcídio stated. The alleged fraud is under investigation at the Supreme Federal Court (STF), in an inquiry opened after the plea bargain of the impeached senator.

Aécio had already said that the revelations are "lies, that they have no basis in reality and refer only to hearsay from third parties."