The judges of the 12th Chamber of Criminal Law of the Court of Justice of São Paulo sentenced Anderson Diego da Silva, 35, to a sentence of rendering services to the community for the crime of mistreatment of animals.
He was accused of giving a piece of bread contaminated with Carborfuran – popularly known as “chumbinho” – to a paraplegic mutt named “Estopinha”, who lived in a lady’s house in front of his commercial establishment.
The owner found the dog dead in the backyard, foaming at the mouth, on the morning of March 2, 2020, around six o’clock.
In the yard there were four dogs. Another mutt, named “Ari”, also bit the piece of bread and died during treatment. When she registered a police report, the guardian gave the police images from the security camera on the street, which show Silva hanging around the house at 10:49 pm on March 1st.
At the time, the defendant owned an establishment that sold skewers in the center of Itararé, a city in the interior of São Paulo, about 350km from the capital.
According to the complaint filed by prosecutor Bruno Gondim Rodrigues, the witnesses who were heard during the investigation phase confirmed “constant attacks of hysteria on the part of the investigated in relation to the animals in the residence in front of his establishment. One of them even heard from the person being investigated that he wanted to kill the victim’s animals and those living on the street”.
On the morning that the dog “Estopinha” was found dead, her owner called a veterinarian, who confirmed the death by poisoning.
Next to the mutt’s body, there was a piece of French bread with gray granules, which the criminal expertise confirmed was the toxic Carbofuran.
In the first instance, the case was processed in the 2nd Criminal Court of Itararé and was sentenced by Judge Guilherme Rocha Oliva. One of the main discussions in the process is the acceptance of the veterinarian’s report as expert evidence.
Despite being a professional hired with resources from the tutor, the judge understood that the report of the care was sufficient as evidence, since “both the veterinarian himself, as several other witnesses ratified the death of the animal in Juízo, by poisoning”.
A former employee of the defendant testified against him in the lawsuit, saying that Silva “has always been cruel to animals” and that he believed they got in the way of his business.
Oliva sentenced the owner of the establishment to an eight-month sentence, which would be served in a semi-open regime. Despite Silva denying that he poisoned the dogs, he changed his statement.
In the investigation phase, he said that he would have passed by the guardian’s house on the night of the 1st to use the bathroom and, later, during the hearing, he stated that he was going to throw the garbage. In the magistrate’s view, this “compromises the credibility of his testimony”.
The defense appealed to the São Paulo Court of Justice. The judges of the 12th Chamber of Criminal Law reformed part of the sentence, changing the penalty for the accused.
The rapporteur, Heitor Donizete de Oliveira, stated that “the accused’s narrative is not convincing” and that, with the restrictive penalty of rights, “the appellant (Anderson Diego da Silva) will feel the due disapproval of his conduct and prevention so that he does not return to this conduct, maintaining the semi-open regime in case of non-compliance”.
The decision was published in the Diário de Justiça this Monday (19) and still has an appeal to the third instance, in Brasília – DF.
version of the condemned
The report contacted lawyer Rodrigo Barbosa Urbanski, who defends Silva. He said he will appeal the decision through a special appeal.
“The Civil Police of Itararé did not indict Anderson, because they understood that there was no right authorship. However, the Public Prosecutor’s Office understood that it was. There was an indirect indictment,” he explains.
The patron also questions the lack of an autopsy report: “there is no official expertise. There is a report of a particular service that was added by the author herself”. For him, what motivated the defendant’s conviction were the security camera images, which, however, are incomplete and do not show Silva throwing bread inside the house where ‘Estopinha’ lived.
The drug used to poison dogs, Carborfuran, “has a restricted sale and requires a prescription for purchase. There are many doubts in this case”, concludes Urbanski.
Source: CNN Brasil
