The maxi trial for the collapse of Banca Etruria ended with 22 acquittals out of 23 accused, because the fact does not exist. This is the sentence issued this morning by the Court of Arezzo in relation to the main line of investigation into the failure of the Aretine credit institution. The verdict was pronounced by the president of the college, Gianni Fruganti. The only one convicted was the Trentino financier Alberto Rigotti, a former director of the board, who was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment for the crime of bankruptcy.
The Public Prosecutor of Arezzo had asked for the conviction for all 24 defendants (one in the meantime died last summer), including former members of the boards of directors and managers of the credit institution, accused, in various capacities, of the bankruptcy crimes fraudulent and simple broken bank.
During the indictment, the deputy prosecutors Julia Maggiore and Angela Masiello had asked for sentences that in total amounted to 64 years of imprisonment. The penalties requested ranged from a maximum of 6 years and 6 months (for Rigotti) to a minimum of one year. The civil parties have already announced that they will appeal against the acquittal sentence.
Alberto Rigotti was challenged by the Public Prosecutor for the bad loans accumulated by the Abm Network group for about 15 million euros. Rigotti, whose vote was decisive for the departure of the historic president of Banca Etruria Elio Farali and for the entry in his place of Giuseppe Fornasari, would have drawn on several occasions, according to the accusation, from the coffers of the institute.
The other defendants acquitted are Giorgio Guerrini, whose name for the Prosecutor was connected to the business of the Yacht Prestige of Civitavecchia; Federico Baiocchi De Silvestri; Giovanni Inghirami, who was vice president of Banca Etruria; Augusto Federici; Lorenzo Rosi, last president of Banca Etruria before the commissioner; Laura del Tongo; Andrea Orlandi; Ugo Borgheresi; Franco Arrigucci; Mario Badiali; Maurizio Bartolomei Corsi; Alberto Bonaiti; Luigi Bonollo; Piero Burzi; Paolo Cerini; Giampaolo Crenca; Paolo Fumi; Saro Lo Presti; Gianfranco Neri; Carlo Platania; Carlo Polci; Massimo Tezzon.
The 24th accused was the tax lawyer and university professor Enrico Fazzini, who died on 31 July at the age of 76; he had been asked for a sentence of 2 years and 8 months.
“The sentences are respected. For some charges my client has been acquitted. Now we will see carefully how the sentence matured and we will evaluate for the appeal. The reasons will be fundamental”. Thus the lawyer Daniela Rossi, lawyer of the financier and former director of Banca Etruria Alberto Rigotti, the only one of the defendants at the maxi trial in Arezzo for the BPEL crash to have been sentenced.
“With this sentence the accusatory system has completely fallen away. We are waiting to read the reasons but it is evident that the hypothesis of an appeal becomes plausible. Moreover, this sentence is in contradiction with the previous one following the sentences imposed for bankruptcy with the abbreviated procedure “. This was said by the chief prosecutor of Arezzo, Roberto Rossi, after this morning the Arezzo court acquitted all the defendants except one of the maxi trial for the collapse of Banca Etruria.
“In Banca Etruria the savings of 35 thousand Tuscans were burned, 300 million euros in bonds and shares pulverized, but for these judges there was no crime. An infinite shame”. It is Letizia Giorgianni, president of the Victims of Salvabanche association to comment on Adnkronos. From the financing to the Yacht Etruria, which still rusts in the port of Civitavecchia, to the Sacci loan (the biggest suffering of the former BPEL) and to the San Carlo Borromeo, the resort of the guru Armando Verdiglione, evidently in this immense economic hole – underlines Giorgianni – according to the panel chaired by judge Giovanni Fruganti and made up of judges Ada Grignani and Claudio Lara, there was no crime. All acquitted, except the scapegoat “.
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