Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, known as the STF, concluded the trial of Criminal Action 470, or AP 470, between August 2 and December 17, 2012. Better known in Brazil as the Mensalão case, the proceeding became one of the court’s most extensive criminal trials to that point, requiring 53 plenary sessions.

The case remains historically significant not simply because of its political prominence, but because it produced a detailed Supreme Court judgment involving 38 defendants and a series of later appeals that altered some outcomes charge by charge. For readers assessing the record, that distinction matters: the initial result was not a single, uniform finding against all defendants, and subsequent rulings did not affect every conviction in the same way.

What happened

At the conclusion of the initial trial phase, the STF convicted 25 defendants and acquitted 12. Proceedings involving one defendant, Carlos Alberto Quaglia, were annulled from the preliminary-defense stage and remitted to a lower court. Thus, the original disposition was not simply a division of convictions and acquittals among all 38 people before the court.

The STF published the principal judgment on April 22, 2013. It ran to 8,405 pages. That publication date is important because accounts sometimes place publication in October 2013, which is incorrect.

The case did not end with the initial judgment. Appeals subsequently changed the legal outcomes for particular charges and particular defendants. In February 2014, the court acquitted eight defendants of criminal association. In March 2014, it acquitted João Paulo Cunha and João Cláudio Genu of money laundering. Those rulings concerned those specified charges; they did not erase other convictions that remained in place for Cunha and Genu.

Why it matters

AP 470 is a prominent example of high-level criminal accountability being decided by Brazil’s highest court. Its record also illustrates why broad descriptions of criminal cases can be misleading. A defendant may face multiple allegations, and an appellate acquittal on one count does not necessarily reverse findings on other counts.

The trial’s duration and scale also made it unusual. According to the STF’s own account of its 2012 agenda, AP 470 was its longest trial at the time, spanning 53 full-court sessions. The 8,405-page judgment shows the breadth of the court’s written reasoning and the complexity of recording the final outcome.

Defendants and political allies disputed aspects of the ruling. Some maintained their innocence and characterized the proceeding as political or unjust. Those responses are part of the public record surrounding the case, though they do not alter the convictions recorded by the court or the later, charge-specific appellate acquittals.

The bigger picture

For an international audience, the Mensalão case is best understood as a Supreme Court criminal proceeding with a layered outcome, rather than as a single verdict. The court tried the case over several months in 2012, issued its principal written judgment in 2013 and continued to decide appeals in 2014.

That sequence matters for historical accuracy. The original trial produced convictions, acquittals and one remittal to a lower court. Appeals later produced acquittals on criminal-association charges for eight defendants and money-laundering acquittals for Cunha and Genu, while leaving other convictions intact in the latter two cases.

The case therefore remains relevant as a reference point in discussions of Brazilian institutions and criminal adjudication, while also underscoring the need to identify the exact procedural stage, defendant and charge when describing court outcomes.

By the numbers

What happened next

The legal record continued beyond the initial 2012 judgment through appeals decided in 2014. Those decisions demonstrate that the final history of AP 470 must be read at the level of individual charges, rather than through a blanket statement that all initial rulings either stood or were overturned.