Brazilian court convicts Jair Bolsonaro’s son of seeking US help for his father

Brazil supreme court finds that Eduardo Bolsonaro – who resides in the US - tried to get sanctions put on judges trying ex-president over coup plot

Brazil’s supreme court has sentenced Eduardo Bolsonaro to four years and two months in prison after finding him guilty of courting US ⁠interference in his father’s coup plot trial last year.

The office of Brazil’s ‌prosecutor general had ‌charged Eduardo Bolsonaro – who lives in the US - courting interference from the Trump administration to help Jair Bolsonaro’s case, by imposing sanctions on the court’s justices and tariffs on Brazilian goods.

His father, the former far-right president, is serving 27 years in prison for plotting a coup in 2022 after losing the elections to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The younger Bolsonaro, a former lawmaker, moved to the United States in 2025, months before ‌the trial that convicted his father of plotting a coup.

In the US, he has been ​active in building support, especially from the Trump administration, for his father. Eduardo Bolsonaro said in a statement after Tuesday’s conviction that he had not been properly notified about the court’s legal ⁠process.

He had previously told Reuters that his work in ​the US ​was not aimed at getting ​his father acquitted by Brazilian courts, but ​at forcing the ‌Brazilian supreme ​court to ​punish officials who, according to the son, were not complying with Brazil’s constitution.

In July last year, a Brazilian supreme court judge ordered that the bank accounts and assets of Eduardo Bolsonaro be frozen over allegations that money being sent to him by his father was bankrolling his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to help Bolsonaro avoid punishment for the alleged coup attempt after the 2022 election.

Bolsonaro served one term as president from 2019 to 2022.

In March, the former president was allowed to temporarily be placed under house arrest for three months due to ill health after being diagnosed with pneumonia and treated in an intensive care unit.

Bolsonaro’s lawyers argued that his health problems, many of which stem from a knife attack in 2018, warranted him being granted house arrest for humanitarian reasons.