There is a long interview with Lepore and Paladino (and their lawyer, Torricella) in the Sunday Folha. The online version is more complete than the printed version, and can be found (in Portuguese translation) at
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/c...5u129463.shtml
Principal items of interest here are:
1) The radio was functioning just fine. Paladino says, "We received transmissions in Portuguese from Brasilia during the whole flight." He also says that when he did talk to the controller in Brasilia, [IIRC, a few minutes before the collision], to get the frequency in Manaus, there was "no urgency" in the controller's voice.
2) Asked about why they didn't set the transponder to code 7600 [ATC has said they should have], registering communications difficulties, Paladino again says, "7600 isn't for difficulty in talking to the control center, it's for equipment failure. That wasn't the case. The radio was perfectly fine. What we we have to do, in these cases, is search for another frequency, more appropriate for the route, which is what I did."
3) Police have claimed there's a dialogue between the pilots recognizing that transponder was turned off. Lawyer (who reporter describes as being like "a lioness defending her cubs") wouldn't let them answer that.
4) Lepore claimed that "It happens all the time, that you have a flight plan at one altitude and you are authorized to fly at another. Let's say it happens 99% of the time."
5) Something online, not in the printed newspaper, is about the Legacy not descending to 360 over Brasilia. Paladino says, "We're not expected to contract the control tower on flying over Brasilia". The lawyer, Torricella, says, "The regulation for when you're under radar vigilance is that the control tower is who defines the rules and altitudes is the contol center. The law is clear."
6) The pilots indicated they were quite familiar with the Legacy; Lepore had 20 hours of simulator and a lot of time in very similar aircraft; Paladino had flown a lot as commandant of an Embraer 145, an exact copy of the Legacy.
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It's an honest interview. The reporter, Eliane Cantanhêde, asks the tough questions and they answer, except that the lawyer won't let them reproduce dialogues for which the police are withholding the transcripts. This was in contrast to the travesty of the interview with the controllers in Época magazine, in which they didn't even give their names, and got only soft questions, with Época tiptoeing around the real issues.
Note that the interview was taped in English, transcribed to Portuguese, and the taped destroyed, presumably to keep lawyers from playing the word games they so love. Quotes above are my own translations back to English, and certainly vary from what was actually said.
They are only unconvincing when Cantanhêde asks what they think of the Brazilian press coverage, and all three respond diplomatically. Though the less Portuguese one speaks, the better the coverage appears. The accusations against the pilots have been compared by others to the worst excesses of the Brazilian media.