LEFT: After Margarida Bonetti’s story resurfaced, the São Paulo house where she lives has become a tourist attraction. The home sits among high-rises that have long since replaced its neighbors. It became a national obsession in Brazil, leading television broadcasts and topping news websites, but has drawn little attention outside South America’s largest nation. Millions downloaded Felitti’s seven-part podcast, a co-production with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo. They also went after Mari Muradas, who worked as a doula guiding women through childbirth and had provided the journalist with the original tip about Bonetti’s past. When Margarida Bonetti’s past was revealed in the summer of 2022, alongside the criticism of her, there was also a spasm of support for her on social media. In a sense, they were the enslavers next door. “Diplomatic immunity can become diplomatic impunity all too quickly,” Lagon said.īut the Bonettis were different - ensconced on a typical street in Maryland, living what appeared to be a typical American life. estimate put the number even higher, at about 50 million people.) The Bonettis were accused of an inhumane crime in an area thick with foreign delegations, some of which have been known to engage in unfair labor practices with little consequences. At least 40 million people are estimated to live in slavery around the world, according to Mark Lagon, who directed the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the State Department from 2007 to 2009. The victim in her case is representative of a much larger problem that extends well beyond the borders of Brazil and persists to this day. In a rambling interview on Felitti’s podcast, Bonetti - periodically speaking in the third person, referring to herself as “the Daisy” - complained that the FBI “created a character” that was nothing like her in real life.īonetti has been condemned in some corners of the country - with her story surfacing discussion of abusive labor practices and racism that have long stained Brazil’s history. ![]() Bonetti, who is approximately 70 years old, has said she did nothing wrong. Margarida Bonetti, who did not respond to interview requests made by phone, in writing and in person, has been shielded all these years by the Brazilian constitution’s ban on extraditing its citizens. Kavanaugh, who represented her ex-husband on a pro bono basis while in private practice Kavanaugh’s mother, Martha Kavanaugh, who served as a judge in aspects of a related civil lawsuit and Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who, during his tenure as a federal prosecutor, tried Bonetti’s ex-husband on the same charges she was hiding from in Brazil. Even with that wealth of clues, Bonetti remains an enigma, an amalgam of evasions and lies and spin.Īn array of notable names appear in the long trail Bonetti left behind. Other details leap out from hundreds of pages of court records reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as new interviews with many of the saga’s significant players in Brazil and the United States.
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