A Sao Paulo court has sentenced former city councilman Camilo Cristofaro to 1 year, 9 months and 10 days in prison under an open regime for offenses and racial abuse against a community leader, according to the Painel column of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. The first-instance ruling allows Cristofaro, stripped of his seat for racism in 2023, to appeal while free. Under Brazilian law, an open-regime sentence is served outside a closed prison facility.

The Folha report, published on Thursday (27), does not identify the court branch that issued the sentence nor detail the offenses. The case adds to Cristofaro's judicial record. In June 2022, the Sao Paulo state prosecutor's office (MPSP) charged him with racial abuse and threats against nursing assistant Dilza Maria Pereira. According to the complaint, based on an investigation by the 2nd police precinct of Bom Retiro and reported by Poder360, the then councilman allegedly said of the victim: "Shameless black woman. And besides being a shameless black woman, she was a black thief, with no right to a voice". Folha did not clarify whether this week's conviction stems from that complaint.

Weeks later, in July 2022, the MPSP filed a second complaint against Cristofaro, this time for the crime of racism, over the phrase "that is a black thing, right?" ("e coisa de preto, ne?"), picked up by the councilman's open microphone during a remote session of a City Council parliamentary inquiry committee on app-based transport, on May 3 of that year. Prosecutors sought collective moral damages and the loss of his mandate. In that criminal case, Cristofaro was acquitted: in July 2023, a judge found no racism in the remark, according to the legal news site Migalhas.

The political outcome was different. In September 2023, the City Council stripped Cristofaro of his seat after a breach-of-decorum proceeding. He was the first Sao Paulo councilman to lose his mandate for racism, according to Alma Preta Jornalismo.

Case timeline

• May 3, 2022: the phrase "e coisa de preto, ne?" is picked up during a remote committee session;
• June 9, 2022: prosecutors charge Cristofaro with racial abuse and threats against nursing assistant Dilza Maria Pereira;
• July 8, 2022: a second complaint, for the crime of racism, over the remark made in the committee session;
• July 2023: a judge acquits the councilman in the criminal case over the committee remark;
• September 2023: the City Council strips Cristofaro of his seat;
• August 27, 2026: the former councilman is sentenced to 1 year, 9 months and 10 days under an open regime for racial abuse against a community leader.

One day after the 2022 committee episode, Cristofaro released a video alongside Black employees titled "racism is a mistake, I apologize" and said on social media that he is not a racist. "I come from a generation where little jokes were normal and I need to deconstruct those prejudices", he said at the time, according to Poder360. His defense could not be reached by Folha to comment on the conviction.

The next procedural step is an appeal to the Sao Paulo State Court of Justice (TJ-SP), which Cristofaro can file while free. No deadline or hearing date has been reported so far. Because the sentence was issued by a lower court, the conviction is not yet final.