Marcos Pereira da Silva, head of the Evangelical Church "Assembly of God of the Latter Days", was condemned Thursday, September 12, by a Brazilian tribunal for the alleged rape of a woman who assisted the church he ran, informed local sources.
According to news website La Nación.cl, da Silva was condemned to 15 years in prison by a Rio de Janeiro court after being in preventive prison since last May, when he was accused of raping a woman in 2006.
Beyond this case, the Rio de Janeiro state attorney presented two accusations of rape of at least two other women, while the Attorney of Penal Investigation of the Public Ministry linked him to drug trafficking activities by, presumably, using the Church's structure for criminal activity.
"The witnesses heard all say that the accused is a manipulative person, cold, that only thinks of himself, using people to satisfy his most primitive instincts promiscuously," said Judge Ana Mota Lima in the sentence, quoted by La Nación.
According to information from agency EFE, quoted by Univisión, Marcos Pereira da Silva is accused of hiding drugs and firearms in the church he presided and of being a member of a band of drug traffickers operating in the region. According to the charges from the Rio state attorney, the accused pastor served as an intermediary to send messages to drug trafficking bosses imprisoned in Brazil.
The polemic man presided over his church for 20 years, and in 2004, Pereira helped police officers resolve a riot in a Rio de Janeiro prison by acting as a negotiator, as requested by then-governor Antony Garotinho.
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