Around 5:00 pm, on a clear day, somewhere over the state of Mato Grosso, the Legacy and a commercial airliner, a Boeing 737, brushed past each other.

The Legacy was slightly damaged and managed to land. The Boeing, belonging to Gol Airlines, flight 1907 from Manaus to Brasília, crashed in a remote region known as the Serra do Cachimbo killing all 154 people aboard.

Lepore and Paladino were actually taken into custody in Brazil immediately following the accident. They were later released on the understanding that they could face criminal charges.

Since the accident, many Brazilian authorities and relatives of the victims have clamored for a trial of the American pilots. A trial has taken place, part of it by teleconference with the pilots testifying in the United States.

This week, a federal judge in the municipality of Sinop (population 106,000), in the state of Mato Grosso (near where the Boeing crashed), found Lepore and Paladino guilty of causing the accident and gave the two American pilots a limited-custodial sentence (“pena em regime semiaberto” – that is, the prisoner must spend the night in jail but can leave during the day) for a period of four years and four months.

In his sentence, the judge, Murilo Mendes, made it clear that the pilots were responsible for the accident. However, he then converted the sentence into community service in the United States and ordered the suspension of their pilot’s licenses during the period of the sentence.

The judge’s ruling can be appealed to a higher court and, as a matter of fact, the Mato Grosso state office of government attorneys (“Ministério Público Federal em Mato Grosso – MPF-MT”), immediately announced that they will file an appeal seeking a stiffer penalty for the pilots .

The Association of Relatives and Friends of the Victims of Flight 1907 released a note saying the sentence by judge Mendes left them in a state of “consternation and anger.” A lawyer for the association declared the relatives and friends wanted a maximum sentence of imprisonment.

He also criticized the alternative sentence. “Although the time to be served is long, the fact that it will be served doing community services in their country (the US) means it amounts to practically nothing, it is nil,” the lawyer said.

The pilots attorney has also announced that he will file an appeal since he considers that the punishment is too severe. For Theodomiro Dias Neto, defense lawyer, the sentence wasn’t too far from what they wanted. He announced he would appeal however, because the judge wasn’t consistent in his ruling.

Can any sentence be enforced, however? Most experts believe that any ruling is unenforceable and probably won’t be accepted by the American justice so the pilots won’t be subject to any punishment not even some symbolic community service. A Brazilian judge has no jurisdiction in the US. Besides, there is no extradition treaty between both countries on the matter at hand.

Judge Murilo Mendes has his doubts his ruling can be enforced. According to him, there is “a question of sovereignty.”

He stressed, however, that there is a treaty between Brazil that might help the fulfillment of the sentence. “Provided there is cooperation by the US authorities. Since this is a cooperation treaty we imagine that cooperation will occur,” he said.

My son married a lovely Brazilian woman. Their friendship, romance and
eventual nuptials extol the benefits of a highly integrated world economic
community. They met while employed by a multinational computer firm. The melding
of their two cultures is a testament to the vitality and diversity created by
international cooperation.

They planned two wedding ceremonies. The first was in March of 2006 – a brief civil ceremony held in their hometown of Seattle , Washington. The purpose of this proceeding was to allow my daughter-in-law to obtain a spousal visa.

The formal wedding was held in June 2006 in the Brazilian city of São Paulo. This affair was attended by over 200 friends and relatives. As I thought about this party, I began to grow tense and worried.

I do not support the current administration’s conduct of foreign affairs. My current events awareness set me up for a major dose of anticipatory anxiety. I assumed that my role in São Paulo would be somewhere between either defending the history of the U.S. foreign relations or being an apologist for U.S. policy errors.

Given our history of intervention in Latin American affairs; I knew that Americans would not be too popular. Dollar, diplomacy, Yankee imperialism and our unqualified support for military dictatorships would tarnish my image. Visions of angry confrontations with wedding guests became a source of nightmares.

We arrived in São Paulo one week before the wedding. We had met my son’s in-laws in Seattle. They were gracious hosts who went far out of their way to make us feel at home. However, I perceived a subliminal pressure to discuss America’s role in world politics. Was this pressure coming from my counterpart (my daughter-in-law’s father) or was it guilt spewing out of me?

I googled US-Brazil relations when my son got engaged to his Brazilian fiancée. Much to my dismay I found out that the newly elected President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had expressed admiration for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro – both anti-American socialist dictators.

Additionally, he had written off President Bush’s call for a Free Trade Area of the Americas as an American plot to annex Latin America. If the President of Brazil was so ready to clash with the United States, what would 200 or more friends and family have to say to an American in São Paulo?

The pre-wedding week went by very quickly. Finally the big night arrived. After the ceremony was completed my daughter-in-law’s wave of over 200 family and friends began to approach my wife and I. My anxiety level increased and my endocrine system began preparing me for fight or flight. My heart was pumping; However, I was still not sure what I was going to do.

I do not know how these people truly viewed me, but their grace and manners were exceptional. Not one anti-American joke or comment was transmitted by anyone. The common theme was their unrestrained joy that we had traveled such a great distance to attend this wedding.

Their warmth and sincerity began to convince me that this wedding was about my son and his lovely wife and did not deal with the United States versus Brazil. The joining of two families was the focus of these gathering, not geopolitical imperatives.

The containment of communism ran a distant place from this celebration of love that transcended national boundaries. To the 200 guests family was the most important objective of the evening.

Further proof of my admiration for my new Brazilian family and friends was provided by an exchange of emails with my daughter-in-law’s father. My wife and I were so overwhelmed by the reception we received that when we returned to the United States, I wrote an email to my son’s father-in-law.

I thanked him and told him that his family and friends made us feel just like family. In his response he mentioned that as a rule Brazilians do not like the Americans that they encounter. However, he mentioned that in private conversations with many of the guests that my wife and I were universally showered with praise.

Our new Brazilian family and friends had not allowed politics or prejudice to interfere with the joy of two young people starting their lives together.

Raymond James Mierrel, a composer from the United States, has been missing since April. According to the police of São José dos Campos, in the interior of São Paulo state, he was killed by his Brazilian girlfriend Regina Filomena Rachid, with the help of Evandro Celso Augusto Ribeiro and Nelson de Siqueira Neves.

The American had visited the girlfriend twice before. The investigations reveal that during the seven days that Mierrel stayed at Rachid’s house in his last visit he was doped with narcotics and alcohol so that he would give the passwords to his ATM cards. The Brazilian woman ended up withdrawing about US$ 46,000 from his accounts.

In order to conceal her tracks, the Brazilian woman, on April 2 rented a Chevrolet Corsa and after killing the American with an electrical wire, with the help of Ribeiro and Neves, took the dead man in the car to an empty lot in Caçapava, a little city in the interior of São Paulo, and set the composer’s body on fire. He ended up being buried as an indigent since the police could not identify the body.

Mierrel’s parents took their case to the FBI when their son didn’t come back on April 4 as scheduled and they were not able to establish any contact with him.

Regina was  arrested in June while trying to rob a businessman in a shopping mall in São José of the Campos. The police at that time found in her purse a bank card that belonged to Mierrel.

Arrested on September 23, in Cabo Frio, a Rio beach resort, Ribeiro confessed that he got 12,000 reais (US$ 5,500) to get rid of the American’s body. Ribeiro blamed Regina for planning and executing the murder.

Neves, the other suspect, has just turned himself to the São José dos Campos police this Monday, October 2.  The three involved in the crime are being indicted for kidnapping followed by homicide. They could get as much as 30 years in jail.

According to the police, when they arrived to the man’s place, in Copacabana, in the south zone of Rio de Janeiro, they found a computer filled with pornographic pictures of minors.

In addition to child pornography they also found a small quantity of marijuana, several phallic objects sculpted in soapstone and other erotic material.

After being detained for a short period at Leme’s 12nd precinct, Weber was transferred to the Polinter (Interstate Police Station) while the Brazilian authorities decide in which jail to keep him during the investigation of the pedophilia case.

The police, who say that the American is married and has been living in Brazil for five years, started investigating the case after the father of the little boy who is believed to have been molested filed a complaint against him.

The father knows Weber very well since he is his landlord. The man charged with child molestation lives in a room in the rear of the father’s house.

The Copacabana police chief, Monique Vidal, requested from the judge and was granted 30-day preventive arrest against Edwards in addition to an order to apprehend and examine the American’s computer. The police believe their man has an Internet site dedicated to child pornography.

Police from the Santa Cruz Precinct, in the western zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, arrested eight American tourists in a mansion on Niemeyer Avenue, in the São Conrado district.

The Americans are accused of encouraging prostitution. The eight Brazilian women who were also found on the premises were contracted by the foreigners to act in porno films.

The police received a tip that various underage females from Sepetiba, also in the western zone, were being enticed by Americans to participate in porno films in a house on Niemeyer Avenue.

When they arrived at the locale last night, August 2, the police found the girls, but none of them was a minor. They were interrogated and released.

The eight Americans had been in the house for 40 days. All of them have temporary tourist visas in Brazil, which prohibits them from engaging in lucrative activities. They were charged under Article 229 of the penal code, which deals with encouraging prostitution.

The precinct commissioner, Marcos Menezes, said that the films were meant to be sold on the US market for US$ 40,000 and that the Brazilians would each receive a US$ 129.40 (300 reais) performer’s fee.

The commissioner has already sent an official letter to the Federal Police to find out whether extraditing the Americans is in order.

In the house the police seized three video cameras, three laptops, a scanner, eight films produced in Rio by the Americans, photographs, and 30 grams of marijuana. The Americans were transported to the Polinter (Interstate Police) jail in the port zone of the city.

Agência Brasil