New recordings unmask Robinho and show the perversity of the rapist and those who support him. A journalist responsible for the investigation said that he had to listen to the audios in a dropper: “At various times I stopped to do something else so as not to think, because my stomach was really upset. I even questioned whether I would have the strength to go ahead with this work”
Former footballer Robinho was convicted in all instances of Justice in Italy for gang rape. The case, dating back to 2013, was investigated by the Italian police.
This Wednesday (14), the portal UOL released intercepted conversations that show the reaction of the player when he learned about the allegations about participation in the collective rape.
O Pragmatism also had access to the full audios, which total almost 10 hours of recording. Content contains strong language, reports of sexual abuse and may serve as a trigger.
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“That’s why I’m laughing, I don’t care. The girl, the girl was extremely drunk, she doesn’t even know who I am”, says the former Milan player in an excerpt.
In another dialogue, Robinho even makes threats of aggression. “Mina knows you didn’t do shit to her, is she an idiot? We’re going to punch her in the face.”
One of the journalists responsible for checking and listening to the audios, Janaina César says that she thought about giving up the job at some point. “It was very difficult. We listened by ‘steps’, because you can’t hear everything and remain inert. They are very heavy and we were doing the dropper. There were several moments where I had to stop and do something else to not think about it, because it really turned my stomach. Many times I asked myself: ‘Will I have the strength to go ahead with this work?’”.
“A very important moment was reading a small part of her (victim) testimony and that was very heavy. We were reading what she had remembered and that moment was really hard, you really couldn’t swallow it dry,” she added.
Repercussion
The audios reverberated in the press. Marco Antônio Villa, commentator for the CNN, claims that Robinho shows contempt for people. “It’s terrifying, isn’t it? It does not give. And then we start to think, to reflect, that football players, these ‘top’ players, they think they are above good and evil, and that they can do anything”, he said.
After the revelation of the audios, the journalist Ana Thaís Matos, commentator of the Globo Group, used social networks to remember the attacks he suffered during the Robinho case. “Great silence from those who attacked us so much in the case of the former player. I remember the interviews with the golden lawyer (who criticized the journalist at the time). I remember the colleague who found me yelling at me because, according to him, I was ruining his friends’ careers. I remember interviews of colleagues attacking me.”
The attacks on the journalist were accompanied by a leak of her phone number in the same week that her father was hospitalized – he died days later. “The point we achieved in all of this was having more men concerned about getting out of clichés and not leaving only responsibility to women. Because we always end up being the lacradora, while the guys are silent and only talk about the ball. But it is a matter for all of us”, added Ana Thaís.
Renato Maurício Prado, from UOL, claims that Robinho has to be arrested. “Brazil needs to arrest Robinho, Brazilian Justice needs to arrest Robinho. Ah, but the judgment was in Italy and in Brazil he is protected, why? Does it mean that the guy can commit a crime in a foreign country and when he arrives in his own country he is protected? It makes no sense. These audios are more than enough to put Robinho in jail”.
“This Robinho case would be a great opportunity to set an example: you cannot be a criminal, it doesn’t matter if your crime was in Italy, Switzerland or the USA, if it is proven that you are a criminal, you will pay. Is it proven, proven what he did, told by his own voice, and that’s it? Brazilian justice has an obligation to put Robinho in jail, ”he added.
“Conversations are disgusting, there is no other word. I mean, there is: conversations are criminal. Anyone who manages to reveal any aspect of the case, which led to Robinho being sentenced to nine years in prison for gang rape, has no salvation. Anyone who is not convinced of the violence, misogyny and evil of these men, with these dialogues, can only be like them”, pointed out Alicia Klein, professor and columnist at UOL.
Robinho mocked at the start
The material shows how the former player, at first, treated with disregard the formalization of the complaint of what happened in 2013. Throughout the disclosed dialogues, Robinho contradicts himself. In the first intercepted conversations, the former player makes light of the accusations and claims not to have touched the girl. The investigation by the Italian police, through forensic evidence and also based on the Brazilian’s own statements, proved the opposite.
“I saw Rudney chomping her, and the other guys chomping her. So the guys who rang her are going to f*ck themselves”, says Robinho in another moment. Rudney is one of the friend of the athlete who was in Milan.
There were at least six people who had some kind of contact with the woman who filed the complaint in 2014. The group was denounced under Article 609 of the Italian Penal Code, which describes the crime of group sexual violence.
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Dialogues show how Robinho and Ricardo Falco, convicted in all instances of Italian Justice, combined with their friends different versions to share throughout their testimony.
Audio excerpt:
Trigger alert 🚨
Congratulations to @UOLNoticias for the article revealing the audios of the rapist Robinho.
He confesses his crimes in calls with friends and even proposes to beat the woman to silence her.
Terrifying. pic.twitter.com/t8VC9Dxe58
— Felipe Neto 🦉 (@felipeneto) June 14, 2023
