The minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) gave him five days to say whether he agreed with the computer expert’s request to annul the seizure of his cell phone, which in practice would prevent the use of evidence eventually found on the device.
The phone was confiscated in the confidential investigation opened to investigate the source of the leak of messages from assistants from Alexandre de Moraes’ office at the STF and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in the course of investigations into the former president’s allies.
Tagliaferro was head of the TSE’s Special Advisory Board for Combating Disinformation during the period in which Moraes was president of the Court.
was ordered by the minister during the expert’s testimony to the Federal Police in São Paulo, last month. The delegate who conducted the hearing consulted lawyer Eduardo Kuntz, who represents Tagliaferro and attended the hearing, whether he would spontaneously hand over the device. Faced with the defense’s refusal, and already armed with a personal search warrant, the police chief confiscated the phone.
In his decision, Alexandre de Moraes justified that expertise on the device is essential for investigating the leaked messages. “There is no other appropriate diligence to fully elucidate the facts,” he argued.
The defense claims that the decision was arbitrary, because the expert was heard as a witness, and asks for the phone to be returned immediately.
A first appeal was denied by the minister, who classified the request as “confusing, unfounded and absolutely impertinent”.
The investigation into the disclosure of the dialogues was associated with the fake news inquiry, which investigates attacks, offenses and threats to ministers. Alexandre de Moraes justified that the “deliberate leakage of information” could be associated with “structured action by a possible criminal organization whose purpose is to destabilize republican institutions”.
The device seized by the PF is not the same one that was in the possession of the São Paulo Civil Police in May 2023, when Tagliaferro was arrested in the act in an incident of domestic violence. It is suspected that the conversations were extracted from the expert’s old cell phone. It is not known, however, whether it was he himself who took the conversations public or whether the messages were disseminated by third parties who eventually had access to the device.
Tagliaferro vehemently denies having released the messages. In an interview, the expert stated that he had “no relation whatsoever” to the leak.
