Sergio Moro

Career

In 1996, Moro started teaching law graduates at his alma mater, the Federal University of Paraná. This very same year, he became a federal judge in Porto Alegre, before moving to Joinville, Santa Catarina, in 1999. Between 2003 and 2007, Moro worked on a case involving the public bank Banestado. The investigation resulted in the arrest of nearly 200 people for tax evasion and money laundering.

In 2012, he worked with Rosa Weber, a minister of the Brazilian Supreme Court, in the Mensalão scandal. Weber called him because of his experience with cases involving financial crimes, more specifically money laundering. After leaving the judiciary and the Bolsonaro government, his first case as a lawyer, in 2020, favored controversial Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz, in a dispute against mining company Vale S.A. In the same year, Moro was hired as a partner by the consultancy Alvarez & Marsal, judicial administrator of the recovery process of the Odebrecht Group – the company targeted by then judge Moro during Lava Jato. Moro worked for Alvarez & Marsal for almost one year and was paid approximately half million dollars.

Operation Car Wash

In 2014, while working in Curitiba, Sergio Moro became one of the head judges in Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato), a massive criminal investigation that started as a money laundering case and evolved to a huge corruption scandal crackdown, involving bribery and misappropriation of public funds by political authorities. The investigation was modeled after Mani pulite in Italy. Corruption scandals in Brazil usually take a long time to be investigated and the legal processes tend to stagnate. However, at an unusual speed, Moro authorized further investigations, detentions and interrogations of suspects. By late 2017, at least 120 sentences were carried and 175 people were sent to jail. Despite some criticism from fellow jurists for being a "media darling", Moro enjoyed high popularity with the Brazilian people and became one of the main faces in the fight against corruption in the country.

Despite criticisms regarding the high speed with which he imposed sentences in such a complex case, his actions were backed by the Brazilian Supreme Court and most of his sentences and decisions were upheld in higher courts. By late 2016, Moro had sent 28 people to jail on charges of corruption, with four of them having their sentences reduced and another four being acquitted by higher courts. Overall, in Operation Car Wash, 71% of the sentences given by Moro were upheld by the Brazilian Regional Federal Courts. However, in 2021, due to Moro's conviction for partiality, famous Lava Jato defendants reaped the fruits of the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court that relaxed the jurisprudence that had taken politicians, businessmen and bribery operators to jail. The number of whistleblower petitions, initial investigations, inquiry requests, etc. dropped from 257 to 200. Of the 31 inquiries, 3 were filed in 2021, 7 complaints await judgment (the same number as in 2020) and no convictions.

In 2017, Moro sentenced former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to 9 and a half years in jail, on the charges of money laundering and passive corruption. Lula was considered the frontrunner for the 2018 presidential election. The sentencing caused an uproar in Brazil at that time, with many widely supporting and saluting the judge for his decision, with others claiming he was getting ahead of himself. The decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Brazil in 2021, which stated that Moro had acted with partiality. The April 2022 decision of Lula's 2016 petition was ratified and expanded by the UN human rights committee. Additionally, in a unanimous decision in April, the Regional Federal Court (TRF) ruled that Lula's lawyers be compensated for the telephone interception and illegal secrecy lifting determined by Moro in 2016

Minister of Justice

In many of his encounters with the media and further interviews, Sergio Moro described himself as "apolitical" and said he had no interested in joining the political world. However, right after the 2018 elections, rumors started to circulate that the president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, was considering nominating Moro to head the Ministry of Justice. Despite claiming he was unaware of such a plan, it was later revealed that Moro was contacted by Paulo Guedes, an incoming member of Bolsonaro's administration, during Bolsonaro's election campaign. Exactly four days after the election, on 1 November 2018, Moro met with Bolsonaro and it was announced that he would become a minister in Bolsonaro's administration.

His nomination was well received by fellow magistrates across the country, but opponents of Bolsonaro and some people in the press criticized the decision on the grounds of conflict of interest, claiming that Moro's sentencing of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva greatly benefited Bolsonaro's bid for the presidency.

On 12 May 2019, president Bolsonaro publicly expressed the intention of nominating Moro to the Supreme Federal Court, replacing Justice Celso de Mello, who would retire in 2020. However, on 1 October 2020, he nominated Kassio Nunes Marques.

During his short 15 months tenure as Minister of Justice and Public Security, Moro focused on fighting organized crime, border security and taking new anti-corruption measures, with different degrees of success. Crime fell sharply across the board in most of the country in 2019, but if that was due to any government action or not remains unknown. However, as 2020 came along, the relationship between Moro and Bolsonaro deteriorated due to a variety of factors. First, Moro started to complain about the president's interference in his ministry. According to the former judge, during talks about him assuming the Ministry of Justice, Bolsonaro made a promise to Moro that he would have independence to run his ministry the way he saw fit, including the appointment of personnel, especially in the Federal Police. However, that changed over time and the president started to interfere in investigations and in the way Moro was running the ministry. On top of that, Moro also criticized Bolsonaro's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 24 April 2020, after an unjustified discharge of Federal Police's Director-General Maurício Valeixo by president Bolsonaro, Moro decided to announce that he would leave the Ministry, while denouncing the president's intention to meddle in investigations. He then started a career as lawyer and attorney.

Political career

As a Lava Jato judge, Moro repeatedly stated that "There is no possibility of a political career”. However, he actually started his political career in November 2018, when he accepted the invitation of President Jair Bolsonaro to be the head of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. He joined the political party Podemos (PODE) on November 10, 2021 and confirmed that he was building his government project, as a pre-candidate for the Brazilian presidency.

Moro had emerged as a "third way" candidate against poll-leading former president Lula on the left and extreme-right Bolsonaro. However, after leaving the Podemos party, Moro removed himself from the run for the presidency. His popularity has faded, due to his controversial decision to join the Bolsonaro cabinet, and of political bias and judicial overreach that tainted the legacy of the “Car Wash” investigation.

Moro joins the Liberal Party in 2026 to run for the governorship of Paraná, being endorsed by Flávio Bolsonaro soon after.

Controversies

Moro's methods have been questioned by his peers and audited by Brazilian Justices since 2005. In 2007, when a defendant wasn't to be found at home, he issued an order to monitor the lists of passengers of all airliners flying from Ciudad del Este in Paraguay and from Porto Alegre in Brazil to Curitiba in order to track the movements of the defendant's attorneys. From 2007 through 2010, he issued an order to record and collect all phone communications and visitor booth talks between all inmates, their families and attorneys at Catanduvas Federal Penitentiary in order to "prevent future crimes".

These cases, among others, have been considered excesses and have brought grave criticism on Moro. Justice Celso de Mello has officially accused Moro of condoning a "nosy police state" and acting as an "investigative judge". Additionally, Brazilian Justice Gilmar Mendes said he was worried about Moro's actions. For him, the case showed a "set of abusive acts" and "objectionable excesses" practiced by the judge. In his dissenting opinion he wrote that they are "unacceptable behaviors in which resistance or nonconformity of the magistrate is envisaged, when contradicted by decision of superior instance".

On 6 December 2016, at a ceremony in which Moro was awarded a Man of the Year prize by Brazilian Editora Três publishing house, Moro was photographed laughing alongside Brazilian Senator Aécio Neves, PSDB's candidate in Brazil's 2014 Presidential Election and main critic of PT's tenures in office. Since PT is the party most scrutinized by Operation Carwash, the photograph has caused an uproar among PT supporters. During an interview, Moro has said that "the photograph was unfortunate, but there's no bias in my decisions as a judge", while also remarking that Neves is not under his jurisdiction. Neves was accused by five witnesses at Operation Carwash of taking R$300,000 in bribes from Alberto Youssef.

The speed with which Moro has treated specific actions that involve figures from the Brazilian left and his courteous relationship with members of the former opposition, some of which were under investigation themselves, has been criticized by Brazilian jurists and left-wing activists and politicians, who accuse Moro of being part of a lawfare strategy in order to ostracize PT and bring PSDB to power. According to the political scientist Marcelo Danéris, Moro's celerity in treating some specific actions in Operation Car Wash indicates a behaviour similar to that seen in kangaroo courts, and that Moro will have place in history close to Roland Freisler and Quartus de Wet.

During a lecture at Harvard University in 2017, Sergio Moro stated that he considers the use of undeclared donations – a crime in Brazilian electoral law – to fund elections more damaging than illicit enrichment through corruption: "If I take this bribe and deposit the money in Switzerland, the money stays there, it isn't harming anyone at the moment. If, however, I use the money to fraud and win an election, I find that terrible." In May 2017, then-congressman Onyx Lorenzoni admitted to having used slush funds donated by JBS in his 2014 campaign for Congress. Lorenzoni was appointed Chief of Staff by former president Jair Bolsonaro; upon being questioned by the press about Lorenzoni's public admission on the use of slush funds, Moro stated that Lorenzoni already apologized to him and has his "personal trust". In November, 2018, Senator Roberto Requião (MDB) proposed a bill called "Lorenzoni Law", which would grant immediate pardon for anyone found guilty of electoral and public administration crimes or crimes against the national financial system, as long as they ask for forgiveness. This proposal, although official, has been considered a joke on Moro's statements.

Telegram leaks

On 9 June 2019, the online newspaper The Intercept published leaked Telegram messages between Moro and the Operation Car Wash lead prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, in which Moro allegedly sent advice and instructions to the prosecutor in order to interfere in the investigation that ultimately led to the trial and imprisonment of former president Lula da Silva. He was accused of not showing impartiality as a judge of da Silva's trial. Three days later, another conversation was leaked, revealing a secret meeting between Dallagnol and Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux, asking for his support against the then fellow Supreme Court judge Teori Zavascki. Moro has thoroughly denied any wrongdoing during the course of Operation Carwash and claimed that the conversations leaked by The Intercept were misrepresented by the press. He also claimed that the messages could be inauthentic.

On June 12, Brazilian conservative magazine Veja published a report accusing Moro of “illegally” steering prosecutors as they worked to convict Brazilian politicians and "overstepping his role as judge," claiming that its journalists had spent a fortnight pouring over nearly 650,000 leaked messages between officials involved in the investigation, and concluded the former judge was guilty of serious “irregularities.” Following the report, Moro released a statement condemning “the distorted and sensationalist diffusion of supposed messages obtained by criminal means.”

According to the news outlets The Intercept and the AP, the FBI requested case documents about Lula's investigation before the case became public, and Moro allegedly authorized the information to be sent to the Justice Department through unofficial channels. On August 20, 2019, Rep. Johnson and his colleagues sent a letter to then Attorney General William Barr stating that The Intercept published leaked communications between Judge Moro and senior prosecutors that "reveal close collaboration" and "reports of collusive actions aimed at building a case against former president Lula”. Rep. Johnson requested the DOJ to inform if the "DOJ agents aware of collusive actions involving Judge Moro...".

The Brazilian Congress identified at least 13 FBI agents involved with Moro and Dallagnol to collect secret court files. In exchange for these files and other information, that would help the prosecution of Brazilian companies under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), U.S. authorities would share part of the fines to Moro and the Brazilian prosecutorial authorities involved with the Lava Jato operation, in order to the create a private foundation totally administered and controlled by the same Brazilian prosecutors.

In July, 2020, 77 members of Congress sent a letter to their U.S. counterparts, requesting that the Americans “adopt the appropriate legislative measures” and “hold those responsible agents and officials accountable.” In July 2021, the Congressman Hank Johnson requested from Attorney General, Merrick Garland to inform the Congress what was the role of the DOJ agents in the Car Wash operation and what role DOJ played in the political persecution of Lula da Silva. Congressman Johnson also additionally, informed the Attorney General that Rep. Johnson had never received an adequate response from the Barr DOJ about the issue his letter sent in August 2019.

Personal life

Moro is married to Rosangela Moro, a lawyer and current legal solicitor of the National Association of Parents and Friends of Exceptional Children (Associação de Pais e Amigos dos Excepcionais). They live in Curitiba and have a couple of school-age children. In addition to his professional career, little is known about his personal life. IstoÉ magazine described him as someone with "reserved lifestyle and simple habits".

He is a Roman Catholic.

Sergio Moro is portrayed by Marcelo Serrado in the 2017 Brazilian film Polícia Federal: A Lei É para Todos.