Luana Barbosa 🇧🇷 🌍

🚨🇧🇷⚖️- The Filipe G. Martins Case: An Invitation to the International Press To editors, correspondents and investigative reporters covering Brazil and the rule of law: I am writing to ask you to look closely at the case of Filipe G. Martins. It may become one of the gravest judicial errors in Brazil's modern history, or one of its clearest cases of political-judicial persecution. Either way, it deserves scrutiny that Brazilian institutions have so far failed to provide. I am not asking you to take a side. I am asking you to check the record. Much of it is now public, and a significant part of it sits in a U.S. federal court in Florida. Who he is and where the case stands Filipe Garcia Martins Pereira served as Special Adviser for International Affairs to President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022). In December 2025, the First Panel of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) sentenced him to 21 years and six months in prison in the so-called "coup plot" case. He is serving that sentence in a closed regime at the Hildebrando de Souza custody unit in Ponta Grossa, Paraná. By September 2026 he had spent more than 950 days under some form of restriction of liberty, including two pretrial detentions. Both of those detentions rested on facts that now appear not to have happened. He is a polarizing figure. He has also been convicted at first instance in a separate case over a hand gesture made in the Senate in 2021; he denies any racist meaning and appealed. None of that changes the questions below, which concern the integrity of evidence and process. 2024: jailed for a trip he never took On 8 February 2024, Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Martins' pretrial detention as a flight risk. The basis was a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) record showing his entry into Orlando on 30 December 2022, alongside President Bolsonaro. The record had visible defects, according to the defense and Brazilian press reports: - His first name was spelled "Felipe", not "Filipe". - It cited a passport cancelled since 2019. - It listed a visa category inconsistent with his status. The defense produced airline boarding records, Uber rides, bank statements and TIM mobile geolocation data placing him in Brasília and Curitiba on those dates. According to reporting, Brazil's Prosecutor General recommended his release as early as March 2024. He was nevertheless held for about six months, released only in August 2024. In October 2025, CBP publicly confirmed that Martins did not enter the United States on that date. In a hearing on 5 March 2026, U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell (Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division) stated that a false record had been entered into Border Patrol systems, that the government acknowledged its falsity and gravity, and that Martins has the right to know how it happened and who caused it. The judge pressed the government to search its internal communications to identify those responsible. The transcript became public in August 2026. 2026: jailed again over a LinkedIn notification On 26 December 2025, after his conviction, Martins was placed under house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor and a ban on using social media, including through third parties. Days later, a retired Brazilian Air Force officer emailed the Supreme Court a screenshot. It showed a LinkedIn notification that Martins' profile had viewed his. On that basis, Martins was returned to prison on 2 January 2026. The defense's account is consistent across its filings: - Martins handed his social-media credentials to his lawyers after his first arrest in February 2024. - The account's last login, according to the platform's own access logs, was on 13 September 2024, made by the defense to gather evidence and long before any ban. - The only later access, on 4 January 2026, was by the defense, after the arrest, to download that access report. The Prosecutor General (Paulo Gonet) held that the log, submitted by the defense, lacked sufficient reliability. The defense then had the records certified by a notary and asked the court to request the data directly from Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn. As far as public reporting shows, no such request was made. Martins remains in prison. The conviction: what the evidence on the merits shows The prosecution's case is that Martins helped draft and present a decree, the so-called "coup draft", at a meeting at the Alvorada Palace on 7 December 2022. The core accusation comes from the plea agreement of former aide-de-camp Lt. Col. Mauro Cid. Testimony and data in the record point the other way, according to the defense and press reports of the trial: - Former Defense Minister Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira testified that Martins did not attend that meeting. - Former Army Commander Gen. Freire Gomes said an unidentified adviser was present but did not recognize Martins; he had earlier told police it was possible Martins was there. - TIM mobile data places Martins' phone on antennas in Brasília's Asa Sul district throughout that morning. - No document authored, edited or circulated by Martins has been produced. In mid-2025, messages attributed to Cid, published by Veja magazine, suggested investigators shaped his testimony. Cid later described them as venting. On 29 October 2026, Justice Dias Toffoli rejected a defense petition for a move to a semi-open regime on procedural grounds, without examining the merits. The defense says it is preparing a request for criminal review (revisão criminal). The questions no one has answered (1) Who entered the false record into CBP systems, and why? The defense says it already knows the names, which remain sealed in the U.S. proceedings. Press reports speak of CBP employees and Brazilian officials working with U.S. agencies. (2) Did Brazilian authorities have access to, or influence over, a U.S. border-security database? In October 2025, a Wall Street Journal column by Mary Anastasia O'Grady raised exactly this hypothesis: that the case bears the marks of foreign infiltration inside CBP. (3) Why was a detention maintained for months against official data from airlines and phone carriers, and against the Prosecutor General's own recommendation? (4) Why was a screenshot from a private citizen accepted, while the platform's own log was rejected and the platform itself never asked? (5) Will anyone in Brazil be held accountable for a deprivation of liberty that a U.S. federal judge has tied to a false government record? Each of these questions can be investigated with documents, not opinions. What the court and prosecutors maintain Fairness requires stating the other side, and good reporting will test it: - The conviction was issued by a collegiate panel of the Court, not by a single judge, and does not rest on the migration record. - The 2026 detention was ordered for breach of a court-imposed restriction, endorsed by the Prosecutor General, and upheld by the First Panel. - CBP's October 2025 statement described the record as inaccurate and under investigation. Whether its insertion was deliberate, and by whom, has not yet been established by any court. These positions are part of the story. Whether they withstand the documents is exactly what independent journalists are equipped to determine. Where to start - U.S. court docket: Martins Pereira v. United States Department of Homeland Security, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division (FOIA action filed January 2026). The 5 March 2026 hearing transcript is on PACER. - CBP's public statement of October 2025 confirming Martins did not enter the U.S. on 30 December 2022. - The Wall Street Journal: Mary Anastasia O'Grady, "Did Brazil Penetrate U.S. Border Protection?" (October 2025), and the editorial board's July 2025 piece arguing Martins should be free. - Brazilian reporting on the U.S. transcript: Folha de S.Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo (August 2026). - Gazeta do Povo reporting on the U.S. judge's findings, the LinkedIn notarial record, the testimony and data on the merits, conditions of detention and the Toffoli decision. - The defense team: attorneys Jeffrey Chiquini, Ricardo Scheiffer Fernandes and Tiago Tondineli. Note that Martins himself remains barred by court order from giving interviews. Why it matters beyond one man In Kafka's The Trial, Josef K. cannot prove his innocence because the court does not operate by rules he can reach. Filipe Martins was asked twice to prove a negative: that he did not travel, and that he did not log in. Twice the proof was produced, and twice it was not enough. The institution that formally recognized the falsehood was not a Brazilian court, but an American one. If a false entry in a U.S. government database can be used to imprison a foreign citizen, that is a story about American border security as much as Brazilian justice. If evidence in a defendant's favor can be set aside while unverified accusations against him are accepted, that is a story about the rule of law in the largest democracy in Latin America. I would be glad to share documents, a detailed timeline, and contacts, and to answer questions about Brazilian criminal procedure. Respectfully, Maurício Pierre Attorney (OAB/SP 160.754) and independent journalist Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil. @MaryAnastasiaOG @WSJ @nytimes @FT @shellenberger @ggreenwald @MatthewLeeICP @Michael_Pooler @mattgaetz @ChanelRion @OANN @JasonMiller @emd_worldwide @GBNEWS @hartwig_free @FoxNews @realDailyWire @BreitbartNews @MiamiHerald @visegrad24 @UHN_Plus @clarincom @Telegraph @guardian @abc_es @ABC @CBS @CBSNews @LANACION @gaceta_es @WashTimes @dcexaminer @dallasnews @DallasExpress @nypost @washingtonpost @joerogan @RealAlexJones @patrickbetdavid @PBDsPodcast @Bannons_WarRoom @MarioNawfal @elonmusk @chrispavlovski