party. Six years later, by a vote of 60 to 15, the PT's national directory permitted Soares to return to the party. In November 2012, Soares was sentenced by the STF to 8 years and 11 months in prison for conspiracy and racketeering in connection with the Mensalão scandal. After he appealed the sentence, the STF acquitted him of the charge of racketeering in 2014. In September 2014 he was permitted to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest. In March 2016, he was pardoned for his participation in the scandal and released from prison. Operation Car Wash On April 1, 2016, Soares was one of the targets of the 27th phase of Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato). This phase of the operation was named Carbono 14 and it involved the R$12 million loan made by Banco Schahin to cattle rancher Jose Carlos Bumlai, half of which was funneled to Ronan Maria Pinto, owner of the newspaper Diario do Grande ABC. The fund was eventually spent on campaigns for political candidates supported by the PT. Soares was initially brought in as a witness but was indicted as a defendant in the Carbon 14 action for the crime of money laundering. Federal Judge Sergio Moro found him and four other defendants guilty, and sentenced him on March 2, 2017, to five years in prison, noting that he had previously been convicted of complicity in the Mensalao scandal and that the money laundering in this case was particularly sophisticated, in that two people were interposed between the source of the funds and their final destination and that the scheme had involved two false loan agreements. Soares appealed his conviction. After Bumlai was questioned again in February 2019, Soares asked in March 2019 that Bumlai be questioned yet again, claiming that in 2016 Bumlai's testimony had effectively absolved him, Soares, of guilt. In late March, a panel of judges denied requests to free Soares and others jailed in Operation Car Wash. References Living people Workers' Party (Brazil) politicians Brazilian politicians convicted of corruption 1955 births