SP court acquits Thiago Brennand of eight-year sentence for rape

The decision, taken in May, reversed, by two votes to one, the sentence of eight years in prison imposed in the first instance, in August 2025, in the case related to the accusation of rape of student Stefanie Cohen.

The victim's defense appealed to the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) to try to reinstate the conviction. According to lawyers Márcio Cézar Janjacomo, João Manssur, Marcelo Zovico and Márcio Cézar Janjacomo Jr., the decision that acquitted the defendant “violated federal legislation by giving excessive weight to unilateral digital evidence devoid of chain of custody”, they stated in a note.

Stefanie's defense also alleged that there was non-compliance with the Protocol for Judgment with a Gender Perspective, of the National Council of Justice (CNJ), and the Mariana Ferrer Law, which seeks to prevent attacks on the dignity of women in cases involving sexual violence.

Brennand's defense maintains that the relationship was consensual. During the analysis of the appeal, inconsistencies pointed out by the businessman's lawyers led the judges to conclude that the existence of doubt should result in acquittal.

This is Brennand's second conviction reversed by the São Paulo Court. The businessman also has three other convictions in the first instance. He has been in prison since April 2023 and is currently serving his sentence at Penitentiary II of Potim, in the interior of São Paulo.

Stefanie claims that she was drugged by the businessman during a dinner and taken to a hotel, where she was allegedly raped. According to the report, Brennand also threatened to release an intimate video.

"I was feeling sick, and he was forcing the relationship, always in a violent way. There was no consensual relationship at any point, as I was completely out of my mind. He was forcing the anal relationship, and I remember begging him not to, because it was something I had never done. He was forcing it without a condom, without anything, and saying that I was his girlfriend. I said no several times, I reacted more strongly when he wanted to do that, which is something even more aggressive, but he didn't care", he said Stefanie to Estadão, in 2022.

In addition to the accusations of sexual violence, the complaint filed by the São Paulo Public Ministry against Brennand includes suspicions of false imprisonment, torture, serious bodily harm, unauthorized recording of sexual intimacy and disclosure of a sex or rape scene.

Arrested for rape, Thiago Brennand will marry his own lawyer

Businessman is serving a prison sentence in the interior of São Paulo and will participate in the ceremony by proxy. Karina Kufa, who took over her defense four months ago, says she believes in her future husband's innocence