Psychic News has the story in this month's issue:
Joao Teixeira de Faria, now aged 77, has been sent to jail for 19 years.
Sentenced on two charges of rape through sexual fraud and two of the rape of a vulnerable person, each against a different woman, he is still awaiting trial for ten additional sex crime charges and two further charges of illegally possessing firearms.
His defence team's plea that due to his advancing age and heart complications, he should be kept under house arrest, has been dismissed and the judge has ruled that he should serve the sentence in jail. His legal team plans to appeal against the decision.
PN also reports of various 'unexplained incidents' which occurred when detectives spent two hours interviewing Faria in 2018.
Detective Karla Fernandes told the press: "Suddenly the computer that was being used to transcribe the suspect's answers to the allegations seemed to have a life of its own and the commands on the keyboard wouldn't work.
When the clerk tried to enter the medium's statement, the keys locked on a specific letter and OOOOOOO was recorded continuously on the screen for a few seconds."
As this had never occurred before, police put it down to a faulty computer, then a printer in the room started to print of its own accord and a fridge blew up.
Detective Fernandes said: "It was hot in the interrogation room and I decided to turn on the air conditioning.
I plugged the lead into an extension shared with a mini-fridge and the electrical wiring suddenly exploded, burning out the fridge. Everyone in the room screamed with fright. He (John of God) didn't say a word."
One press report said investigators also believe that two unexplained incidents which occurred before Faria gave himself up "could be lined to the occult." "A police clerk, who was meant to transcribe the faith healer's testimony at the police station in the rural town of Annapolis, was run over in a car accident and broke his arm.
Investigators originally intended to question the suspect at this small outpost, but the unexpected incident meant the interview had to be transferred to Goliaia, the capital of the state of Goias.
As the press staked out John of God's house in the city of Abadiania, rumours began to circulate that 'spirits' had cursed the reporters, photographers and TV camera crew who had camped for nearly 24 hours waiting for the psychic healer to surrender after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Hardened professionals admitted they started praying when a news agency photographer in the press pack suddenly fell ill and lost consciousness for a few minutes."
As far as the reported "unexplained incident" with the air conditioning goes - this is pretty much a common occurrence in Brazil, where the antiquated air conditioning in some parts of the country is controlled by a massive wooden box contraption stuck on the outside of the building. The electricity surge required when it's in use often causes a blow-up if other [motorised] electrical items are being used at the same time.
I was in Brazil in 2011 (there when the 9/11 disaster occurred), the advice from our hotel was that if we wanted to use a hairdryer, in our ground-floor room, we had to turn off our (similar outside-boxed) individual air-conditioning first, as it could blow the electrical system for the whole floor.
One day there while sitting outside by the pool, we heard a loud crack and saw flames bellowing up from middle of overhead electrical (or telephone wires - not sure which). It was the same air conditioning system when I lived and worked in Libya, where power cuts were frequent in the expat compound where I lived. The TV was the only other electrical item that would work when the aircon was on; if you wanted to use the washing-machine, hairdryer, etc, you had to turn off your air-conditioning for the duration, and it wasn't an unusual event to see overhead hanging wires throughout the compound suddenly burst out in flames.
There''s a lot more
HERE, where we have been following the John of God case for some time.
