The lawyer Alessandro Pettine rejected the accusations, making himself available to clarify all aspects of the affair that led him to prison a week ago, following an investigation by the Ascoli Prosecutor’s Office for fraud, money laundering, self-laundering, aggravated false material; accusations also contested in various capacities against four other people under investigation who are at large and against Fabio Carpani, the other Ascoli native locked up in prison, who instead made use of the right not to answer. In fact, yesterday morning Pettine and Carpani were subjected to preliminary interrogations at the end of which their respective lawyers, Nazario Agostini for Pettine and Umberto Gramenzi for Carpani, requested the release of both or at least house arrest. The deputy prosecutor Mara Flaiani expressed a negative opinion on this point. It should be kept in mind that, in ordering the detention in prison for Pettine and Carpani, the judge of the preliminary investigations Annalisa Giusti set the prison detention at 30 days to allow the Prosecutor’s Office to continue with the investigations; therefore the possibility of an immediate attenuation of the precautionary measure is remote. Meanwhile, Judge Giusti has followed up on the preventive seizure decree of 151 thousand euros, for various reasons, from Pettine, Carpani and MQ of Porto Sant’Elpidio and LI of Alba Adriatica. The guarantee interrogation took place via video link between the Marino prison and the Ascoli court. “Right from the beginning, we positioned ourselves with an attitude of great collaboration, making ourselves available to the judiciary” said lawyer Agostini at the end. This is not a trial in fact, but a trial in law; we must be careful – he added – to evaluate whether the disputed facts can be traced back to crimes”.
There are seven disputed cases of fraud corresponding to sums paid for a total of 200,000 euros. Alleged victims are some subjects legally assisted by the lawyer Pettine, whose defense contests at this stage the accusation of self-laundering on which Pettine’s detention in prison is essentially based, in reference to the danger of tampering with evidence and repeating the crime. According to the accusation, the scams against clients were carried out by the lawyer from Ascoli through the formation of false settlement agreements made to be signed by his clients in the context of civil proceedings relating to debt collection, property foreclosures, property release procedures, also using provisions falsified judicial reports.
Peppe Ercoli
