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The evangelical pastor and former Brazilian congresswoman Flordelis dos Santos de Souzaaccused of having murdered her husband with the complicity of several of the couple’s 55 children, was sentenced to 50 years in prison this Sunday in Rio de Janeiro.
Anderson do Carmohusband of the defendant, 16 years her junior and also a pastor, died victim of 30 bullets at the door of the house where they both lived in Niteroi, neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro, in the early morning of June 16, 2019.
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back then, The deputy attributed the murder of the pastor to an assault carried out by several men who apparently had been chasing them on a motorcycle.
Nevertheless, the investigations carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police indicated that the deputy was the one who had planned his death in complicity with some of his children, a project that had started since 2018 with a series of failed poisonings.
The Prosecutor’s Office based the accusations that the murder was motivated by financial disputes in the family, accused 7 of the 55 children (51 of them adopted) of the pastor, two of whom have already been convicted for their involvement in the crime.
THE SENTENCES
In the trial that began last Monday, Flordelis dos Santos de Souza was accused, as the alleged mastermind, three of the couple’s children and a granddaughter.
After the trial, which lasted seven days and whose last session lasted 24 hours, the pastor received a sentence of 50 years and 28 days in prison for triple qualified homicide, attempted homicide (when trying to poison the victim), use of false document and armed criminal association.
His biological daughter Simone dos Santos Rodrigues was also sentenced to 31 years and 4 months in prison for murder, attempted murder and armed criminal association.
André Luiz Oliveira and Marzy Teixeira, his other two accused sons, and his granddaughter Rayane dos Santos, were found not guilty.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Nearis Carvalho Arce after hearing the testimony of 23 witnesses, 13 of them from the Prosecutor’s Office, in what has been considered one of the longest trials in Rio de Janeiro.
The 61-year-old pastor and gospel singer has been in prison since August 13 last year, two days after Congress stripped her of her mandate.
Two of the sons were sentenced in November of last year, one to 33 years in prison and the other to 7, after the Prosecutor’s Office demonstrated that they were the material authors of the murder.
A third son was convicted of falsifying documents to try to cover up the participation of his mother, founder of the Ciudad del Fuego Evangelical Community, and a fourth was acquitted.
SEXUAL ABUSE AND MONEY
During her testimony this Saturday, the pastor pointed out that the motive for the crime was the alleged abuse committed by her husband, of whom she said he beat her and even raped her, an abuse of which another of her daughters (Kelly) also said she had been a victim. .
However, the former congresswoman once again denied her involvement in the execution of the crime.
In the first session of the trial, the Bárbara Lomba Police Station stated that the investigations made it possible to establish that consensual sexual relations between family members were common.
Anderson himself was initially adopted as Flordelis’s son when he was 15, before becoming her husband.
Flordelis, who became popular as a gospel singer and pastor, was elected in 2018 as a deputy for the Social Democratic Party (PSD), a formation that supported the candidacy of the current Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who had dozens of supporters in his base. evangelical pastors.
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
