Rio: “Carnaval Judging System Was Tom(Jobim)foolery-Proof!”

CPI members were also surprised by the testimony of juror Cris Moura, who admitted having been invited to judge the parade after rendering services, as an architect, to the league’s technical director Júlio Cesar Guimarães Sobreira, who was arrested during Operation Hurricane and this week successfully petitioned for habeas corpus in order to await trial in freedom.

CPI do Carnaval: jurados levavam as notas para casa: “Carnaval jurors took their scoresheets home” (O Globo, Rio de Janeiro.)

A sidebar to the arrest of senior judges, federal and state police, and Rio numbers racketeers earlier this year was that wiretaps in the investigation suggested that this year’s competitive Carnaval parades were fixed.

A follow-up to

• Rio: “Why Does Globo Monopolize Carnival?”
• Rio: Carnival of Indignation!
• Rio: Carnaval Carnage Goes on the Record
• Bingo! Hurricane Blows Up More Mafia Spreadsheets
• Rio Carnaval: Riotur, LIESA Contracts Probed
• Rio-Sampa: “The Italian-Colombian Connection”
• Carnage and Carnival: The Curious Career of Captain Guimarães
• Rio: Carnival Carnage is Political Circus!
• Brazil: Hurricane Blows Lid Off Hummingbird Hype?
• Black Friday for Fat Tuesday, SA?

The plot so far: An army intelligence torturer cut loose by the dictatorship moves to Rio and becomes the King of Carnaval and one of the leading jogo do bicho [numbers racketeering] mafiosos in the region, dominating local politics, buying off the police forces and judges, and reportedly funding paramilitary groups …

Mayor Cesar “Chairman” “The Naked” Maia — the city’s contracts with LIESA and the Globo network are under the microscope in this affair — sent around one of his patented political newsletters (the “ex-blog”) to explain why the jury system as designed was tamperproof. A model of transparent accountability. It was utterly implausible, he argued, that the system could have been gamed.

Which made my ears prick up. I am always interested in the red-teaming of foolproof bean-counting, enterprise-valuing, stock-picking and casino-breaking systems and the like. This is actually kind of the whole overarching leitmotif of New Market Machining.

Capt. Guimarães allegedly sent around a pistol-packing hitman to persuade jurors who were balking at the scheme.

I hasten to add, as always, that I am an enormous fan of the G.R.E.S. Beija-Flor — saravá! — and other escolas of the Liga.

If you could harness the energy of the thousands of volunteer foliões who dance their asses off in the desfiles while dressed outrageously [or while outrageously undressed, in the case of the destaques], you could forget about sugarcane ethanol and just run the world on the fabled Brazilian disposition to celebrate deliriously. Which is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

A Mangueira não morreu
Nem morrerá
Isso não acontecerá

See Hummingbirds Roar Like the Lion King at Sapucaí.

RIO – A CPI do Carnaval, instaurada pela Câmara Municipal para investigar supostas denúncias de manipulação dos resultados do desfile do Grupo Especial deste ano, ouviu nesta terça-feira 13 jurados. Os integrantes estranharam o fato de, após o primeiro dia de desfiles, os jurados levarem os resultados para a casa. Na opinião dos deputados, nada impede que os julgadores tenham trocado informações entre si antes do fim do desfile.

The CPI of Carnival, a parliamentary commission set up in the city legislature to investigate alleged charges [sic] of manipulation in the results of the Special Group parade judging in 2007, heard from 13 jurors [last Tuesday.] Commission members expressed surprise at the fact that, after the first day of parades, the jurors took the results home with them. In the opinion of city lawmakers, there was nothing to prevent the judges from communicating among themselves prior to the conclusion of the competition.

In some parts of Brazil, which still lack facilities for electronic transmission of results from e-voting machines, the precinct captain still transports the machine physically to the data collection center.

Formerly, these precinct officers did so using their own transportation. Now they reportedly have police escorts.

The police in some parts of Brazil being the (parapolitical) police in some parts of Brazil.

One very simple scheme for defrauding e-voting, then, is simply for the precinct officer to stop off at home, switch the machine actually used with a cloned machine stuffed with the desired results, and then proceed on to the data collection center.

Cases of this have been documented.

Ainda para os integrantes da CPI, a situação foi agravada pelo fato de que a Liga Independente das Escolas de Samba (Liesa) só tenha oferecido aos jurados transporte entre a sede da entidade, na Praça Mauá, e a Passarela do Samba. Os membros da CPI também se surpreenderam com o depoimento da jurada Cris Moura, que admitiu ter sido convidada a julgar o desfile após prestar serviços, como arquiteta, ao diretor técnico da Liga, Júlio Cesar Guimarães Sobreira, que foi preso durante a Operação Hurricane (Furacão, em inglês) e conseguiu nesta terça-feira habeas corpus para respondeu ao processo em liberdade

CPI members also believe the situation was aggravated by the fact that LIESA only offered the jurors transportation between LIESA headquarters in Mauá Square and the Sambadrome. CPI members were also surprised by the testimony of juror Cris Moura, who admitted having been invited to judge the parade after rendering services, as an architect, to the league’s technical director Júlio Cesar Guimarães Sobreira, who was arrested during Operation Hurricane and this week successfully petitioned for habeas corpus in order to await trial in freedom.

Federal police searching Julius Caesar’s offices found a mountain of money. Not a “Ye gods, Ye Gon!” mountain of money, but a much more substantial “mountain of money” than the “Workers Party Dumbass” mountain of money” (later found to have been legal in origin. Can Capt. Guimarães say the same? Stay tuned.)

Foram ouvidos nesta terça-feira um jurado de cada quesito do carnaval. Foram eles: Cris Moura, Julinho Teixeira, Luiz Carlos Reis, Rafael David, Rafaela Riveiro Ribeiro, Daisy Guimarães, Gustavo Pazos Quintans, Luiz Antônio Araújo, Flávio Freire Xavier, Salete Lisboa, Irene Orazen, Beatriz Badejo e Alice Serrano.

Testimony was taken [last Tuesday] from one jury in each judging area. They were: [names].

“Captain” Guimarães (l.) with Rio mayor Cesar Maia (second from left)

Os demais julgadores terão seus depoimentos tomados, em audiências públicas já marcadas para os dias 14 e 21 de agosto. Na primeira audiência, em 29 de junho, onde foram ouvidos 10 dos 40 jurados do Grupo Especial, os principais pontos em que apareceram contradições nas informações passadas pelos julgadores foram a quantidade de reuniões com os jurados realizadas pela Liga, o número de pessoas substituídas de 2006 para 2007, além do conteúdo do kit entregue pela Liesa aos integrantes da comissão julgadora.

The other jurors will have their depositions taken in public hearings scheduled for August 14 and August 21. In the first hearing on June 29, in which 10 of the 40 jurors were heard, the main points on which contradictions emerged from the testimony were the number of meetings LIESA held with jurors, the number of jurors replaced between 2006 and 2007, and the contents of the “kit” LIESA gave each member of the judging panel.

“Kit,” according to the federal police, was used at other times by the bicho mob as code for “bribes.”

A CPI deve convocar, agora, o ex-presidente da Liga Independente das Escolas de Samba (Liesa), Aílton Guimarães Jorge, o Capitão Guimarães, e o presidente de honra da Beija-Flor, Aniz Abraão David, o Anísio. O delegado da Polícia Federal, Emanuel Henrique Oliveira, que levantou suspeitas sobre o resultado do desfile, também deve ser ouvido pela CPI. A Beija-Flor foi a campeã do Carnaval 2007.

The CPI is due to summon next former LIESA president “Captain” Guimarães and the honorary president of the Beija-Flor carnival society, Aniz Abraão “Anísio” David. Federal police official Emanuel Henrique Oliveira, who raised suspicions about the results, is also due to be heard. Beija-Flor was the 2007 Carnaval champion.

With an Afrocentric parade that was eerily reminiscent of Disney’s “The Lion King.”

A CPI do Carnaval foi criada depois que a Polícia Federal gravou ligações telefônicas, durante as investigações da Hurricane, que indicariam o pagamento de propinas a jurados no desfile de carnaval deste ano do Grupo Especial. Segundo a PF, Aniz Abrahão David, o Anísio da Beija-Flor, escola vitoriosa do carnaval 2007, usou um pistoleiro para pressionar jurados. O sobrinho do Capitão Guimarães, Júlio César Guimarães Sobreira, que também foi preso, era responsável pela escolha dos jurados nos desfiles das escolas de samba.

The CPI of Carnaval was created after the federal police recorded phone calls, during its Hurricane investigations, that indicated the payment of bribes to judges of the Special Group competition this year. According to the PF, Anísio of Beija-Flor, whose organization won the competition this year, used a gunman to pressure jurors. His nephew, Júlio Caesar Guimarães Sobreira, who was also arrested, was in charge of selecting parade jurors.

No final de junho, nove jurados prestaram depoimento à CPI e três deles confirmaram que tiveram contatos telefônicos sobre a sua participação no corpo de jurados, ou contato pessoal na reunião de todos os jurados às vésperas do carnaval, com Jacqueline da Conceição Silva, secretária de Julio Cesar Guimarães Sobreira. Os nove jurados, no entanto, negaram que tenha havidos pressões ou coerção na votação.

In late june, 9 jurors gave testimony to the CPI, and three of them confirmed receiving telephone calls about their participation as jurors, or personal contact at a meeting for all jurors held on the eve of Carnaval, with Jacqueline da Conceição Silva, Julio Caesar’s secretary. The 9 jurors denied, however, that there was pressure or coercion in the voting.