The driver José Marcos Chaves Ribeiro, 53, accused of allegedly keeping socialite Regina Lemos, 88, in private prison, has already been accused of threatening to kill, assaulting and appropriating the victim’s property long before the case came to light. surfaced in the last week.
Handwritten letters attached to a 2018 Rio de Janeiro Civil Police investigation reveal what José Marcos’ actions were against not only Regina, but also her sister, fellow socialite Therezinha Lemos, who died in May 2016.
In a handwritten document in January 2018, the former maid of the Lemos family, Onila Vieira, reported that she witnessed physical attacks by José Marcos against Therezinha Lemos, Regina’s sister.
“I witnessed countless times that he would lock the elderly woman outside the mansion, leaving her to spend the night in the garden in the cold. It would be a way of punishing her for something that displeased him, and he even took the elderly woman’s cell phone so that she wouldn’t call anyone. Dona Therezinha ended up at the UPA in Copacabana after experiencing numerous attacks and threats,” Onila wrote in the letter.
At the time of the allegations, Therezinha and Regina lived in a mansion in the luxury São Conrado neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro. The employees lived on the same land. Later, Regina said that she was kept in private prison in an apartment in the Chopin Building, close to the Copacabana Palace, until she managed to escape and reported the alleged crime.
Socialite would be doped
In another document signed in January 2018, a family friend, Anderson Paulucci, wrote that he heard worrying reports about Therezinha while eating a meal at an Italian restaurant, a few days before she passed away.
“She herself shared her anguish and afflictions with me, she said that she was afraid for her own life and the life of her sister Regina, who had been constantly drunk and seduced by the family’s chauffeur, Mr. José Marcos,” wrote Paulucci in the letter.
The family friend also reports in the document that the driver was controlling the family’s bank accounts and making decisions about hiring employees and lawyers.
“He reported to me that he was controlling the accounts of his 80-year-old sister and that he said he was a kind of husband, boyfriend, affair with her and also reported to me that he was gradually dismissing all the former employees of the houses in his family. sister and lawyers, hiring from people they trust”, he informs in another part of the document.
Regina became the widow of farmer and businessman Nestor Gonçalves in 1994 and inherited a fortune of approximately R$500 million. The couple had no children.
Death threats
These documents reporting the socialite Regina’s risk situation are part of an investigation that was opened after the chauffeur was reported for assault.
In the November 2017 police report, it is reported that José Marcos had threatened the family of a former driver of the mansion after he was fired and filed a labor lawsuit in court, as he did not have a formal contract, even after working more than 40 years for the family.
“When are you going to get out of here? If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to have you killed”, the driver allegedly threatened, according to the police report. The family lived on the same plot of land as the mansion, in São Conrado.
After the complaint, a former employee of the mansion withdrew from attending a hearing because her husband had been threatened over the phone. “If your wife goes to the hearing, I will kill her!”, the driver reportedly said on the call.
O Metropolises contacted the Civil Police and asked what measures were taken after the complaints were attached to the investigation in 2018, but there was no response until the publication of this article. The space remains open.
Questioned relationship
The report also tried to contact José Marcos via phone call and app messages, but there was no response. At the time the investigation was opened, he denied threats against employees of the mansion.
A report from Fantástico last Sunday (28/4) showed that José Marcos had a stable union with Regina since 2021, but the socialite herself questioned the document and said she did not sign it. From 2023 onwards, he began to claim that the socialite had mental problems and was unable to answer for herself.
José Marcos has a degree in accounting, but did not practice the profession. The socialite’s family and herself deny the romantic relationship between the two.
In an interview with the website New Mag, José Marcos said that he was the victim of a frame-up and stated that the socialite has dementia.
“I’ve been with her for 13 years. If I had done something wrong I wouldn’t even be with her anymore. They invented this lie because she has dementia. I drove for her because we went out to events together. I sleep with her, wake up with her, always together. I am her husband,” she stated.
