OUR CASES
CARLOS EDMILSON SILVA
CITY AND STATE: Osasco and Barueri - SP
CONVICTION: Rape and robbery
SENTENCE: 137 years of imprisonment
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: Misrecognition
TIME SERVED: 12 years
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 05/14/2024
CASE SUMMARY:
Carlos Edmilson was identified as a serial rapist who, armed with a knife, raped and sometimes robbed women on the Castelo Branco Highway. His photograph was shown to all the women who reported being raped in that region, and he was convicted in 12 cases. The Project worked on 10 cases, demonstrating his innocence through DNA evidence and the invalidity of unscientific and induced identifications. After four years of work by the Project, finally, in May 2024, the Superior Court of Justice overturned the remaining convictions.
LUCAS SANTOS DE MEDEIROS
CITY AND STATE: São Paulo - SP
CONVICTION: Robbery
SENTENCE: 8 years and 10 months and 20 days in prison
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: Wrongful recognition
TIME SERVED: 02 years and 02 months
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 02/26/2024
CASE SUMMARY:
Lucas was convicted exclusively due to a mistaken identification made by one of the victims. He became a suspect simply because he was among the Facebook friends of someone investigated for a series of pharmacy robberies in São Paulo. From there, a succession of errors led to his conviction. The Project demonstrated all the illegality and mistakes in the identification, as well as presenting a cell phone analysis that proved Lucas was watching videos online while the actual perpetrators were committing the crime.
SÍLVIO JOSÉ DA SILVA MARQUES
CITY AND STATE: Rio de Janeiro - RJ
CONVICTION: Attempted felony-murder
SENTENCE: 16 years, 10 months and 20 days of imprisonment
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: Misidentification
TIME SERVED: 05 years, 11 months and 14 days
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 12/17/2021
CASE SUMMARY:
Sílvio was sentenced to almost 17 years in prison for an attempted felony-murder (robbery followed by death) that occurred in 2015 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The conviction was based exclusively on his photographic recognition by the victim - who had just come out of more than a month of coma - carried out inductively and illegally, and confirmed in court also in non-compliance with the procedure provided by law. Sílvio, also known as Sílvio "Pantera", was pursuing a promising career as an MMA fighter when he was unjustly imprisoned. At the time of the crime, he was training in a gym located more than 30 km away from the scene of the facts, but this evidence was disregarded at trial, as well as the fact that none of the 3 witnesses to the crime recognized him. In November 2021, the Innocence Project Brasil filed a Habeas Corpus in the Superior Court of Justice to acquit Sílvio, both on the grounds of the illegal recognition and the conclusive evidence of his innocence. The Federal Prosecutions Office was in favor of the request and, on December 17, 2021, Minister Ribeiro Dantas acquitted Sílvio, who had already been imprisoned for almost 6 years.
CLEBER MICHEL ALVES
CITY AND STATE: Cerquilho - SP CONVICTION: Statutory Rape
SENTENCE: 10 years of imprisonment ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: False accusation
TIME SERVED: 03 years and 06 months
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 10/08/2021
CASE SUMMARY:
Cleber was arrested on September 20, 2016, accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl in the city of Cerquilho, in the countryside of São Paulo. The only proof was the word of the alleged victim. Cleber always denied the authorship of the crime, stating that he was far from Cerquilho on the day and time of the facts. His defense even presented documents proving that he passed through cities far from Cerquilho that day, which would prevent him from being there at the time the crime would have happened. Upon learning that the Project sought to prove Cleber's innocence, the victim herself sought justice to recant, admitting that the crime had never occurred and that she had falsely accused Cleber. In addition, the Project obtained telephone location and roadside radar records that confirmed Cleber's alibi. The victim's retraction meant that Cleber had his freedom granted until the final assessment of the criminal review, which was finally accepted by the Court of Justice of São Paulo on August 10, 2021. After three and a half years in prison, Cleber was finally able to meet his son, born a few weeks after his arrest.
IGOR BARCELOS ORTEGA
CITY AND STATE: Guarulhos - SP
CONVICTION: Robbery and attempted felony-murder
SENTENCE: 15 years and 06 months of imprisonment
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: Misidentification
TIME SERVED: 3 anos
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 06/29/2021
CASE SUMMARY:
Igor Barcelos Ortega is a young man from the outskirts of São Paulo, who spent three years in prison for two crimes he did not commit. On the day of the facts, Igor was 24 km far from the crime scene, in the North Zone of São Paulo, where he was the victim of a gunshot wound shortly after leaving a party with his brother and a friend. When he was taken to the hospital with serious injuries, Igor was mistakenly identified by a photo (taken by the cell phone of a police officer, in the hospital bed) as being a boy who, in Guarulhos, had stolen a car and tried to steal another from a Military Policeman, with whom the perpetrators of the crime exchanged gunshots. In investigating the case, the Project obtained important new evidence demonstrating that Igor could not be at the scene of the crimes, and that the injuries he suffered on the same day and time of the crime were incompatible with the dynamics of the two crimes for which he was convicted. After being provisionally released in July 2019, Igor was finally acquitted by decision of the 2nd Group of Criminal Chambers of the TJSP, on June 29, 2021.
ROBERT MEDEIROS DA SILVA SANTOS
CITY AND STATE: São Paulo - SP
CONVICTION: Robbery
SENTENCE: 17 years of imprisonment
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: Misidentification
TIME SERVED:
2 years and 1 month
DATE WHEN HE WAS ACQUITTED BY THE BILL: 03/29/2021
CASE SUMMARY:
On September 25 and November 25, 2018, similar armed robberies occurred on buses in the city of São Paulo. A few days after the second crime, officers went to Robert's grandmother's house and took him to the police station to "elucidate an investigation". There, Robert was recognized by the bus driver of the first robbery as one of the perpetrators of the crime. After his arrest, officers began calling other victims of similar robberies to recognize him. One of those victims named Robert as a co-perpetrator of the second robbery. Both recognitions were made in the police phase were obtained by induction and in disagreement with the procedure provided by law. Even in the face of evidently null and flimsy evidence, Robert was convicted of both robberies, totaling a sentence of almost 17 years in prison. On December 3, 2020, Minister Rogério Schietti Cruz of the Superior Court of Justice granted an injunction to release Robert for the second robbery. But Robert only won his well-deserved freedom 20 days later, on Christmas Eve, when the President of the Superior Court of Justice accepted the request for an injunction in Habeas Corpus regarding the conviction for the first robbery. In the end, the same Court acquitted Robert of both crimes.
ANTÔNIO CLÁUDIO BARBOSA DE CASTRO
CITY AND STATE: Fortaleza - CE
CONVICTION: Statutory Rape
PENA APLICADA: 09 years of imprisonment
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: Misidentification
TIME SERVED: 4 years and 11 months
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 07/29/2019
CASE SUMMARY:
In 2014, a criminal nicknamed "Motorcycle Maniac" approached on his red motorcycle women from the same region of Fortaleza, and then raped them. One of his victims, an 11-year-old girl, was in a beauty salon when she heard Antonio's voice and identified it as that of the man who had accosted and raped her days earlier on a walkway on the outskirts of Fortaleza. The victim went to the Police Station and, already with the photo of Antônio Cláudio – which she had obtained on a social network – pointed him out as the author of the crime. The local media then began to refer to Antonio as the "Motorcycle Maniac". Antonio was initially recognized by several other victims, who gradually gave up. In the end, his conviction was based only on the recognition of that first victim. In partnership with the Public Defender's Office, the Innocence Project Brasil produced expert evidence, from footage of the criminal dynamics, which demonstrated that Antônio Cláudio was 20cm shorter than the true author of the crimes. Thanks to this and other new evidence produced by the Project, the Court of Justice of Ceará acquitted Antônio Cláudio, after almost 5 years unjustly imprisoned.
ATERCINO FERREIRA DE LIMA FILHO
CITY AND STATE: Guarulhos - SP
CONVICTION: Statutory Rape
PENA APLICADA: 27 years of imprisonment
ERROR THAT MOTIVATED THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION: False accusation
TIME SERVED: 11 months
DATE WHEN HE WAS CLEARED BY THE PROJECT: 03/01/2018
CASE SUMMARY:
Atercino Ferreira de Lima Filho was the first case of miscarriage of justice that the Innocence Project Brasil was able to reverse. He had been sentenced to 27 years in prison for allegedly sexually abusing his two children when they were kids. In 2017, Andrey and Aline, the alleged victims, sought out the Project and said the crimes never happened. In the investigation phase of the case, the Innocence Project Brasil heard from the two children and requested that they testify in court. Andrey and Aline were firm in revealing that they suffered threats and physical abuse to give statements falsely incriminating the father, who had divorced the children's mother. The Project also subjected Atercino's children to a psychological evaluation, which confirmed the veracity of the retraction. With the demonstration that the charges against Atercino were false, the Innocence Project Brasil filed a Criminal Review in the Court of Justice of São Paulo. On March 1, 2018, the Court unanimously recognized his innocence and ordered his immediate release. Atercino spent 11 months in prison for a crime that didn't even exist.
