A woman and her supporters are outraged after MMA’s Edilson Florencio da Conceicao, 48, known in MMA circles as Edilson ‘Moicano’, was released from prison just four days after receiving an eight-year sentence for a r*pe.
Florencio da Conceicao was convicted of SA-ing a woman after posing as a taxi driver following a party. According to court records, he drove his target into woodlands where he employed a jiu-jitsu hold until she lost consciousness. The target, businesswoman Renata Coan Cudh, recounted that upon regaining consciousness, Florencio da Conceicao was SA-ing her with his hands around her throat while threatening to kill her.
The attack was interrupted when police officers investigated the suspicious vehicle and discovered Cudh screaming and attempting to escape. Florencio da Conceicao was subsequently sentenced to eight years and two months in prison by the Ceara Court of Justice in northern Brazil.
However, in a decision that has sparked outrage, female Judge Adriana Aguiar Magalhae released the convicted mixed martial artist into a “semi-open regime” just four days after sentencing. The judge cited Florencio da Conceicao’s “good behavior,” “good background,” and status as a “first-time offender” to justify the leniency. She also noted that the four months he had already spent in pretrial detention made him eligible for the modified sentence.
Under this semi-open arrangement, Florencio da Conceicao is permitted to work or attend college during the day, returning at night to stay in a halfway house dormitory outside the main prison building.
The target, who has waived her right to anonymity, expressed her outrage on social media:
“Hard to believe, but the Ceara judiciary represented by a female judge, despite condemning him, decided in the same sentence to release him and give him freedom. That’s exactly what you’re hearing.”
She continued,
“Even with testimony from three police officers, eyewitnesses, examination of expertise, the defendant confessing to the crime and all the violence I suffered, she judged that he could answer in freedom because he was a first-time offender.”
Recounting the traumatic experience, Cudh added,
“I was strangled almost to death in a bush. It was God who sent three policemen who were already leaving at the end of their shift and who saved me and arrested this guilty man.”
The attorney, Luiz Nogueira, has announced plans to appeal the sentence.
“It’s a horror movie. Her testimony is a horror film, a woman being attacked the way she was. The law has to change,” Nogueira stated. “Our idea is to change this law, because it is the only way to change these results.”
Cudh now fears that her attacker might view this lenient sentence as a stepping stone toward an appeal and potentially full freedom, while she and her family continue to deal with the aftermath of the traumatic incident.
