SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS)
Testimonies from actresses Ellen Roche, Karina Dohme and Suzana Pires, given in September 2021 to the Public Ministry of Labor (MPT), are part of the criminal case against the actor and former TV Globo comedy director Marcius Melhem, who became a defendant in August this year on charges of sexual harassment.
Among the abusive gestures described in the statements are those in which Melhem grabbed his colleagues’ waist and sniffed their necks, made sexual comments, in addition to insisting that he wanted to have sex with them. The excerpts were published this Sunday by UOL columnist Juliana Dal Piva.
In this process, the Court accepted the MP-RJ’s complaint, and he became a defendant against three women, actresses Carol Portes and Georgiana Coutinho Goes, and an editor from TV Globo. Another eight cases were time-barred, according to the prosecutor’s office.
After providing clarifications on Globo’s compliance, Roche, Dohme and Pires were summoned by the MPT. The statements collected in this instance were then sent to the MP-RJ and became part of the case file.
In May, the MPT filed a public civil action against TV Globo over allegations of sexual harassment involving the former director of the broadcaster’s humor department Marcius Melhem. The company must respond for alleged omission in relation to the facts narrated by the victims. The case awaits ruling in the Labor Court.
In a note sent to the reporter through Melhem’s communications office, lawyers Ana Carolina Piovesana, José Luis Oliveira Lima, Letícia Lins e Silva and Técio Lins e Silva write that the statements have already been “thoroughly clarified since 2021”, even though they contain of the complaint (see the full note below).
On social media, Melhem denies UOL’s accusations and announces the live for Monday (18), at 7pm.
As Karina Dohme’s case has already expired, the actress is named by the prosecution as a witness. In his testimony, Dohme says that Melhem “tightened his waist and sniffed his colleagues’ necks”, made “lascivious moans” and called the women “hot” and “delicious”.
Dohme also alleges that, shortly before being removed from Globo in 2015, she went up to Melhem’s apartment one night, as he said he was going to deliver something to her. There, he allegedly pushed her brutally, kissed her, lifted her dress and unzipped her pants.
The actress says she was “very scared by the situation and, in the first ten seconds”, she gave in to the kiss, until she pushed him away after “realizing the situation”. In a meeting a few days later, she claims she was fired and told her contract would not be renewed.
Ellen Roche was summoned to give a statement to the MPT, which happened on September 29, 2021, after making statements to TV Globo’s compliance department. She reports that Melhem repeatedly made jokes, such as saying “women, oh, if she gave me the time of day”, but that she would not have known how to differentiate whether they were jokes or jokes.
In 2015, Melhem reportedly offered a ride to Roche, who refused and asked actress Maria Clara Gueiros to accompany her. In a statement dated August 18, 2021 to the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, in the sexual harassment case against the director, Gueiros stated that Roche “desperately knocked on the car window and desperately asked him to take her somewhere, as she wanted to avoid being alone with Melhem”.
Actress Suzana Pires gave a statement to the Women’s Ombudsman’s Office at the CNMP (National Council of the Public Ministry), and then spoke twice within the scope of the MPT, in September 2021 and in July 2023. She states that she was the only woman on the screenwriters, along with eight men.
One day, according to the testimony, Melhem came out of a bathroom at work in just his underwear, saying: “Suzana, let’s resolve our story.” She says she felt very angry, that she started to react and that, from then on, her work began to be devalued.
Last July, Pires rectified her position, and her lawyer requested in the case file that she would go from victim to witness. According to the document, she had testified in the MPT process at the request of other victims, to contribute to “the eventual contextualization of the case, if necessary.” The facts reported, however, were not subject to correction.
Full note from Marcius Melhem’s defense:
“It is important to note, from the outset, that Marcius Melhem did not have access to the full statements at the Public Prosecutor’s Office of
Labor, is not investigated in the labor process and, therefore, did not have the opportunity to contest the lies contained in the statements provided there. Exactly for this reason, these testimonies are now made public, without Melhem having had the opportunity to unmask such lies. Furthermore, what UOL calls ‘unpublished statements’, in fact, have already been exhaustively clarified since 2021. In this sense, for the sake of truth, it is worth informing that:
– Suzana Pires, after the aforementioned statement to the MPT, dismissed lawyer Mayra Cotta and asked the Rio de Janeiro Public Ministry to remove her from the list of alleged victims;
– Karina Dohme never appeared as an alleged victim in the MP, where Melhem could show many communications that refute narratives like those mentioned by the journalist. Perhaps for this reason, she also gave up appearing as a witness in the police investigation;
– As for Ellen Roche, the press itself has already published parts of her statement to the MP more than once in which she denies accusations of harassment and states that she would work with Melhem again, as she has nothing against him.
It should be noted, once again, that Melhem is not the target of an investigation at the MPT and, therefore, cannot defend himself there. And in the instance where he was investigated, none of the three came forward as alleged victims.
Bringing three already clarified cases of non-victims to public opinion is yet another attempt to keep alive an accusation that cannot be sustained.
When rehashing news already exposed, the press should also remind its readers that the MPT brings a letter from TV Globo stating, after intense investigation, that harassment by Marcius Melhem was not proven.”
The post Statements by actresses against Melhem detail sexual harassment and forced kisses appeared first in Jornal de Brasília.
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