He has made no secret of his love of women but the sex scandal surrounding Silvio Berlusconi is now threatening to topple him, as more claims emerge of the systematic recruitment of young women paid to attend private parties at his homes in Rome and Sardinia.
With weeks to go before he hosts the G8 summit the Italian Prime Minister, 72, is facing new allegations, including claims by a Bari escort girl who says that she has recorded footage of herself in the billionaire’s bedroom. Now another woman has come forward, this time claiming that she was paid to attend the Prime Minister’s private parties after going through a hostess service, allegedly operated by a local businessman.
In an interview with The Times Barbara Montereale said that Mr Berlusconi gave her €10,000 (£8,500) “as a present” after attending one of his parties at Villa Certosa. She also claims to have received an attendance fee of €1,000, paid by his alleged fixer, Giampaolo Tarantini.
Miss Montereale, 23, also claimed that Patrizia D’Addario, the escort girl at the centre of the scandal, told her she had had sex with Mr Berlusconi.
Speaking from her home in Modugno, Bari, Miss Montereale said she first met Mr Berlusconi when she attended a dinner at Palazzo Grazioli, his residence in Rome, in November. She was among three women, including Ms D’Addario and Lucia Rossini, another woman from Bari who has also been questioned by prosecutors.
They had been invited and introduced to the Prime Minister, she said, by Mr Tarantini, a businessman from Bari, who is under investigation for corruption and abetting prostitution.
“Everyone at the dinner knew Patrizia was an escort,” she said. “I was meant to be sharing a room with Patrizia at the hotel that night. I slept there alone. When she came back at 8am she told me she had been to bed with him [Berlusconi] but that he hadn’t paid her because she had asked for a favour instead.”
That favour is alleged to have been help pushing through a building project which had stalled.
“My nickname is long thighs. I am not an escort. I am an image girl, a hostess. Appearing at nightclubs, parties, chatting with clients,” Miss Montereale said. Asked why the women were invited to dinner, she said: “We were not there because we were all friends. That first time I wasn’t paid, as I went to accompany Patrizia, but after meeting Giampaolo we agreed that for the next parties he would pay me as a hostess. We agreed ¤1,000, per party, per dinner.”
Mr Tarantini has denied paying girls for hostess services, and publicly apologised to the Prime Minister for having caused “any involuntary damage”. Mr Tarantini also said in a statement to the Italian news agency Ansa that he only reimbursed the women for their travel and expenses. Mr Berlusconi has dismissed the allegations, saying that they are part of a smear campaign.
Mr Tarantini appeared to “work for the Premier”, Miss Montereale told The Times. “It seemed that Giampaolo was in charge of finding girls to make the whole thing more pleasant for Silvio. He paid us, paid me, with his own money, to please him [Berlusconi]. His role was specifically to procure pretty girls for parties. The more pretty girls, the more pleasant the party.” Miss Montereale’s account is the first to corroborate that of Ms D’Addario, 42, who has handed over to Bari prosecutors a number of audio and video recordings that she insists will prove her relationship with Mr Berlusconi.
She is also the first to have admitted a part in the alleged recruitment of young women for the Prime Minister’s parties. Miss Montereale claims to have been invited to Villa Certosa a few weeks after the dinner in Rome.
It was there that she said Mr Berlusconi gave her two envelopes, each containing ¤5,000, “as a present”, after she told him of her money worries. She also shows fistfuls of butterfly necklaces and bracelets, which it is widely known Mr Berlusconi likes to lavish on female guests who visit him in Sardinia. She names Licia Ronzulli, one of the women Mr Berlusconi proposed as candidates for the European elections, as the “manager” who organises hostesses’ arrival in Sardinia.
“She was like a secretary. She would say, Barbara you go in that room, to another girl, we’ll put you in that room. She organised the airline tickets.”
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