Pedro Collor De Mello

Brazilian businessman and noted family, the brother of President Collor DeMello. In an interview with the press in May 1992, he brought down his brother on charges of womanizing, corruption and drug use. The following year his brother resigned when faced with impeachment and Collor and his beautiful wife, Teresa and their kids moved to Miami to escape the scandal, living on an allowance from his mom. Pedro was the youngest of the five Collor kids and became head of the family business, a lucrative newspaper and TV conglomerate in Maceio, the capital of Alagoas. Their father was a governor and senator and the family had a high profile. Over the years, Pedro became acquainted with a powerful Maceio entrepreneur and political insider, Paulo Cesar Cavalcante Farias, known as P.C. In the late '70s, when Fernando began to move into politics, Pedro introduced him to P.C. They quickly fell into a mutually beneficial relationship. As Fernando rose in position, P.C. took the role of campaign treasurer, fixer and right-hand man. In 1991, P.C. began to establish a newspaper in competition to Collor. To Pedro's objections, he made an apparent truce, but when he continued his plans, Pedro concluded that he had Fernando's approval. Pedro declared that Fernando wanted total power and that he, Pedro, blocked him by having the voice of truth in his paper. As their mother held 80% of the stock, the paper was held in the family trust. Pedro kept a dossier on P.C., from which he concluded that P.C. masterminded a multimillion-dollar extortion system that forced kickbacks on government contracts. Thinking that his brother was in league with P.C., Pedro exposed the financier in an interview in Brazil's largest weekly magazine on 5/20/1992. The matriarch held a family meeting in which all agreed that Pedro should stop his expose. Pedro agreed. Fernando's chief of staff drafted a letter that cast doubt on Pedro's mental stability, and he was removed from his role of the past 13 years as head of the family business. Pedro was her youngest and closest, and Dona Leda was deeply grieved at the conflict. Feeling totally betrayed, Pedro lashed out furiously, going after his brother's blood. The family returned fire, called Pedro 'maluco' (crazy). Pedro says that he began getting death threats. Jobless and under siege, he left Brazil in July with his wife and two kids to take refuge in Miami in a pleasant two-bedroom condominium in Coconut Grove. He returned to Rio when his mother, overcome by the situation, had three heart attacks and was in a coma with a priest at her side. The brothers would not be in the same room with each other. Two weeks later, Fernando was stripped of power and suspended as president of the republic. Gregarious and easy-going, the boyish Pedro enjoys good Cuban cigars and liquor and loves to talk late into the night. He and Fernando, three years older, had a close, normal relationship as kids and did not begin their rift until 1974, when Pedro took over the family's new TV station. In 1979, Pedro took over the entire family concern, removing Fernando's people from key positions. Pedro Collor collapsed of a rapidly formed cerebral tumor on 12/17/1994, 11:00 PM, New York, and was declared officially dead two days later, 12/19/1994, 7:30 AM. Link to Wikipedia biography