Brazil presidential hopeful Flávio Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing after asking banker for millions

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SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro denied any wrongdoing Wednesday in his reported request for millions from jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro, a revelation that could harm the lawmaker’s expected run for the country’s presidency in October against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Earlier, The Intercept Brazil published voice messages of Bolsonaro asking Vorcaro, who is at the center of a major corruption scandal, for 61 million reais ($12 million) to produce “The Dark Horse,” a movie that Sen. Bolsonaro says he is making on the life of his father, jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro. The website said the senator asked for more after the initial amount was paid.

Vorcaro, the former CEO of the shuttered Banco Master who lived a lavish lifestyle before he was jailed, is the center of a fraud and graft scandal that has engulfed several high-ranking officials in Brazil since the beginning of the year.

He is accused, among other things, of defrauding many of Banco Master's 800,000 clients, including several state government pension funds, out of hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing them to make shady investments.

Brazil's federal police estimates the bank's total fraud at approximately 12 billion reais ($2.3 billion). The case remains under investigation by the country’s federal police and Supreme Court.

Sen. Bolsonaro, however, defended his request.

“Our case is of a son seeking PRIVATE sponsorship for a PRIVATE film about his father’s story. No public money,” Flávio Bolsonaro said in a statement. “I did not offer any (illegal) advantages in exchange. I did not have private encounters. I did not intermediate business with the government. I did not receive money.”

Hours before his messages to the banker became public, Sen. Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia he had no association with Vorcaro. He did the same in March after Brazilian media reported that his number had been found in one of Vorcaro's cellphones seized by federal police.

In a voice message sent to Vorcaro in September, Sen. Bolsonaro says he was not comfortable for asking for the banker's money, but “the movie is in a very decisive moment.”

“There's many payments that are late, everyone is tense and I am here worried about getting the opposite effect of that we dreamed for this movie,” Sen. Bolsonaro told Vorcaro. The lawmaker has publicly said he intended to have the movie out in the final stretch of the presidential campaign.

He sent other messages in October with the same intention of getting financing for the film.

Political consultant Thomas Traumann said the revelations could negatively impact Bolsonaro’s campaign shortly before his Liberal Party holds its convention to put him on the ballot.

“As Flávio Bolsonaro is an unknown politician whose biggest asset is being son of the former president, a scandal like this could have a devastating impact,” Traumann said. ”(Flávio Bolsonaro’s) asking for money and showing intimacy with a banker who is under police investigation for fraud could force Brazil’s opposition of changing its candidate to keep its chances.”

The banker was arrested in March and has since tried to strike a plea bargain deal with authorities.

Brazil’s Central Bank shut down Banco Master, whose assets topped $16 billion, in November.

Since the scandal broke, Flávio Bolsonaro and his allies have alleged without evidence that it should be pinned on Lula. Earlier this week, a former chief-of-staff for Jair Bolsonaro, Sen. Ciro Nogueira, denied media reports that said he received regular payments from Vorcaro to support him.

Lula allies in Congress said they will push for a congressional investigation on the connection between Flávio Bolsonaro and Vorcaro.

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