MPT will investigate accusations of sexual harassment at Record – 04/25/2024 – Television

Brasilia

The MPT-SP (Public Ministry of Labor of São Paulo) opened an investigation this Thursday (25) to investigate cases of sexual harassment at Record. The focus of the investigation will be the two cases that were recently made public.

To the F5the MPT-SP confirms the investigations, and explains that it had received a complaint of harassment at Record at the beginning of the year, but the complainant did not respond to notifications to provide further clarification.

However, with the information published in the press, the MPT says it has the elements to begin its own investigation based on the complaint initially made without names. The body has already begun the internal rite to begin work.

The report found that the MPT will focus the investigation on understanding whether there was a scheme within Record to stifle reports of moral and sexual harassment made by employees of the company’s human resources sector, in collusion with heads of the journalism sector.

The two cases that were recently made public will be used as a guideline. The first is from Rhiza Castro, a Record News presenter who was allegedly harassed by the news channel’s then director of journalism, Thiago Feitosa.

Rhiza says she received messages praising her beauty, and photos of her work in the newsroom. Feitosa even gave the 32-year-old anchor wine at the end of 2022. As she was unsuccessful in her attempts, Rhiza lost space on TV.

In January 2023, when she reported the case to Record’s Human Resources director, Márcio Santos, she was fired two days after formalizing what happened. Rhiza filed two lawsuits against the broadcaster and against Feitosa.

The first was a conviction in the labor sphere, which determined the payment of millionaire compensation to Rhiza in a first instance decision.

The other was the criminal action. Feitosa paid R$26,000 after closing a criminal settlement agreement with the São Paulo Public Ministry.

In it, Feitosa paid an amount for the case to be archived. The amount that was deposited into the account of the Municipal Fund for Children and Adolescents of São Paulo.

Record fired Thiago Feitosa in November 2023. Feitosa’s defense says that “the police investigation was closed without any type of conviction or guilt and was carried out in secret, any demonstration contrary to this is criminal”.

The second case is that of Elian Matte, former program editor of Roberto Cabrini at Record. Elian says that the attacks began at the end of 20222, after being transferred to Cabrini’s team, and that Marcio Santos, Record’s HR director, started inviting him to meetings in his office.

In the third of them, in November 2022, the HR director would have asked the reporter personal questions, going beyond professional matters. From then on, the conversation would have migrated to WhatsApp.

According to Matte, Santos insisted that the two meet from there, with messages of a sexual nature. Prints of the WhatsApp conversations were attached by the reporter to the police report.

Matte also alleges that Santos watched him through the closed circuit camera system, to which the directors have access through a cell phone application. The director would also have sent photos of himself sexually insinuating himself to Elian.

Elian made several attempts to file complaints against Marcio Santos with several Record executives, but none were successful. His situation only changed after the journalist opened a police report about the case.

Elian Matte was fired from Record this week, which according to him, is illegal, as he is removed by the INSS for “excessive effort”. Marcio Santos would have been fired at the beginning of April, but the F5 it was found that he still has an active email at the station and has spoken to executives frequently.

For all intents and purposes, Santos is removed from his duties and also from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a group led by Edir Macedo, owner of Record, while the São Paulo Civil Police have not concluded their investigation into the case. Márcio Santos says it was all “jokes” and claimed to be the victim of a lie.

When contacted to talk about the cases and the opening of an investigation by the Public Ministry of Labor, Record did not respond until the last update of the report.