A Brazilian man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for stealing a football autographed by Neymar from Congress during the 2023 riots led by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
On Monday night, the Supreme Court convicted Nelson Ribeiro Fonseca Junior, 34, for the theft of the ball, along with several other offences.
He was also found guilty of violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, armed criminal association, and attempting a coup due to his involvement in the January 8, 2023, riots in Brasilia.
Over 500 individuals have so far been convicted in connection with the attacks, during which thousands of Bolsonaro loyalists stormed Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential palace to reject his defeat to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Ribeiro admitted to taking the football, which had been donated to the Chamber of Deputies in 2012 by Santos, Neymar’s boyhood club, where the star returned to play earlier this year.
His defense argued that he found the ball on the floor of Congress amid the chaos and took it with the intention of safeguarding it, later handing it over to authorities 20 days afterward.
However, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ruled that Ribeiro had “actively participated” in the storming and looting of Brazil’s key democratic institutions. He described the autographed ball, which had been on public display in a corridor, as a “public good belonging to the public heritage” of Brazil.
The January 8 insurrection occurred just one week after Lula was officially sworn in, following a narrow victory over Bolsonaro in the October 2022 elections. Protesters had called on the military to remove Lula from power.
Bolsonaro, a former army officer who governed from 2019 to 2022, is accused of helping orchestrate the unrest, though he was in the United States at the time.
He is currently on trial for allegedly attempting to overturn the election outcome and seize power if Lula won. Prosecutors claim the plan failed due to a lack of military support.
Bolsonaro denies all allegations.