Court Upholds Berlusconi Tax Fraud Verdict

By GAIA PIANIGIANI

Published: May 8, 2013

ROME — An appeals court in Milan upheld a conviction on Wednesday of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for tax fraud, sentencing him to four years in prison and imposing a five-year ban on holding public office.

The ruling was a blow for Mr. Berlusconi, the leader of Italy’s main center-right party, which recently formed a grand coalition government with its main political opponent, the Democratic Party.

If upheld by the Court of Cassation, the final arbiter, the ruling would mean that Mr. Berlusconi would lose his seat in Parliament, one of his lawyers said Wednesday.

Italy’s highest court, which rules on questions of legal procedures, could hear the case as early as this year, the lawyer said. Even if Mr. Berlusconi, 76, were definitively convicted, he would be unlikely to go to prison because of his age.

“This ruling was more than expected, it was predictable,” said Piersilvio Cipollotti, one of Mr. Berlusconi’s lawyers.

Mr. Berlusconi’s legal entanglements weigh heavily on Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s new government, which many here perceive as a fragile coalition of parties with different agendas and interests.

In this case, Milan prosecutors argued that Mr. Berlusconi and several other defendants used a series of offshore companies to buy the rights to broadcast about 3,000 American movies on Mr. Berlusconi’s television networks and falsely declared the amount of the payments to avoid taxes. The defendants are alleged to have re-licensed the films internally to Mr. Berlusconi’s networks, pocketing the difference of about $330 million.

Over the years, Mr. Berlusconi has been involved in dozens of legal cases, mostly connected to his business holdings in real estate, insurance, advertising and publishing.

However, he has never served jail time. Some of his convictions were overturned on appeal. Others were thrown out for lack of evidence, or the statute of limitations expired before a final judgment was reached.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/world/europe/09iht-rome09.html?_r=0

Prosecution Rests in Sex Case Against Berlusconi

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Published: May 13, 2013

 Giuseppe Cacace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Karima El-Mahroug

MILAN — The prosecution of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on charges of paying for sex with an under-age prostitute and then abusing his powers to cover it up concluded on Monday with a call for a six-year jail sentence and a lifetime ban from public office.

In detailed closing arguments that lasted nearly all day, Ilda Boccassini, a prosecutor in the case, said that Mr. Berlusconi was aware that the woman, Karima el-Mahroug, was a minor when he met and subsequently had sex with her.

Ms. Boccassini said Ms. Mahroug, known as Ruby Heart-Stealer, was “part of a system of prostitution organized to satisfy the pleasure of Silvio Berlusconi” at parties held at his villa outside of Milan while he was in office. Documents presented to the court showed that in the three years since the alleged sexual encounter took place, Mr. Berlusconi, 76, a billionaire media executive, gave Ms. Mahroug more than $5.8 million.

Both Mr. Berlusconi and Ms. Mahroug deny that they had sex. He has insisted that nothing untoward ever happened at the parties at his residences.

The court is expected to announce a verdict on June 24. The outcome could affect Italy’s fragile three-week-old government, an uneasy alliance of Italy’s largest center-left party and Mr. Berlusconi’s right-leaning People of Liberty party.

“There will be an impact on the government” in the case of a conviction, “so once again Italy’s future hangs in the balance of Silvio Berlusconi’s judicial matters,” said Marco Damilano, a political commentator for the newspaper L’Espresso.

Another court upheld a tax-fraud conviction against Mr. Berlusconi last week. A decision by government ministers from Mr. Berlusconi’s party to attend a demonstration in Brescia on Saturday protesting the rulings against him severely strained the nascent coalition.

After the demonstration, Prime Minister Gianni Letta warned his center-right allies that he was not prepared to keep the government alive at any cost. Italy’s highest court is expected to rule on the tax case this year.

Defense lawyers in the Mahroug case will deliver their closing arguments on June 3. On Sunday night, Mr. Berlusconi offered his side of the story to the public in a prime-time special broadcast on his flagship television station, Canale 5, that lasted nearly two hours.

In the program, “20 Years of War: Ruby, the Final Act,” Mr. Berlusconi claimed that left-wing magistrates had conspired for nearly two decades to destroy him, subjecting him to 33 separate trials that cost him more than half a billion dollars in legal fees, because they could not defeat him at the polls.

In the program, Ms. Mahroug denied that she had ever been a prostitute. She said that she initially lied about the facts in the case — including pretending to be a niece of former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — to make herself seem more important. Mr. Berlusconi said that when he tried to get Ms. Mahroug released from prison after she was stopped on accusations of theft, it was because he believed she was related to the Egyptian leader.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/world/europe/prosecution-rests-in-sex-case-against-berlusconi.html