Roberto Jefferson leaves hospital and goes home with an electronic ankle bracelet

Former federal deputy Roberto Jefferson left the hospital where he was being held and under medical care this Sunday, the 11th, and began serving his sentence under house arrest, after authorization granted by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Jefferson is being monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet.

The equipment was duly installed and Jefferson is now at home, according to information sent by the Rio de Janeiro Penitentiary Administration Secretariat (Seap). The former deputy had been hospitalized for about two years at the Samaritano Hospital, in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro.

According to the decision, he will have to remain in the house located in Comendador Levy Gasparian, a city with around 9 thousand inhabitants 140 kilometers from the capital of Rio de Janeiro.

In addition to electronic monitoring, his passport was suspended and he was banned from leaving the country. He will also not be able to use social media or give interviews without authorization from the Supreme Court.

When allowing Jefferson to go home, Alexandre de Moraes claimed humanitarian reasons.

“At the current procedural moment, therefore, the compatibility between the Dignity of the Human Person, the Right to Health and the effectiveness of Criminal Justice indicates the possibility of granting humanitarian house arrest to Roberto Jefferson Monteiro Francisco, considering his particular and sensitive health condition, amply proven in the records”, wrote the minister.

In April, the 1st Specialized Panel of the Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region (TRF-2) granted house arrest to Roberto Jefferson in the case involving the attack he made on federal police officers, with a grenade and gunshots, during an operation, in 2022.

However, there was another arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court that prevented him from leaving. In the Supreme Court, he had been sentenced to more than nine years in prison in December for crimes such as slander, homophobia, incitement to crime and an attempt to exercise the powers of the government.

Before Moraes' new decision, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) spoke out, on Friday, in favor of changing the prison regime based on medical reports presented by the former deputy's defense.

For the PGR, it would be “imperative to recognize the impossibility of carrying out treatment within the prison system”. Therefore, replacing prison would be “necessary, adequate and proportionate”.