archive Arrested for torture and kill a patient at a rehabilitation clinic in Cotia, in São Paulo Paulo, Matheus de Camargo Pinto said that other employees participated in the crime. The statement is contained in his confession, which took place in interrogation at the Central Police Station of Cotia, and was obtained by g1 on Wednesday (10).
According to Matheus, the employees assaulted the victim, identified as Jarmo Celestino de Santana, on the way from his home to the Efata Therapeutic Community, last Friday (5). “The very agents who removed Jarmo assaulted him at the time of leaving him at the clinic,” reads one of the excerpts from Matheus’ interrogation.
According to the report, Jarmo was compulsorily hospitalized because he was a drug user and was assaulting his wife. Matheus claims that the man arrived “psychologically upset” at the clinic and had to be restrained with abusive use of force, being tied to a chair.
Matheus alleges that Jarmo was assaulted by him and other employees on Saturday (6) after the patient tried to hit other hospitalized people. On Sunday (7), the man was taken to the Emergency Room of Vargem Grande Paulista because of a shoulder injury.
On Monday (8), according to the inmate’s report, Jarmo was found lying on the ground unresponsive. Because of this, the man was taken back to the Emergency Room, where he was found dead.
According to Matheus, the owners of the rehabilitation clinic, Cleber Silva and Terezinha Conceição, helped restrain Jarmo during the last weekend. Both, however, denied any involvement with the torture.
Previous cases of mistreatment
Cleber and Teresinha, owners of the rehabilitation clinic Comunidade Terapêutica Efata, have a history of criminal violence.
In 2019, the couple was indicted for mistreatment of four adolescent patients. The Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) denounced that they only offered soup, sausage and eggs as food and kept the young people in a situation analogous to slavery. They did bricklayer work to earn cigarettes and sweets.
Although they became defendants, they did not have a sentence, as the crime expired before the end of the trial.
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