BARI – In the hidden recording from 2021 in which he told the financier Gerardo Leone about the Sandrino method, the former district councilor Armando De Francesco explained precisely how Alessandro Cataldo managed to win the elections every time: not only did he pay for the votes, but used mechanisms to make the preferences expressed by individual voters recognisable. A mechanism that was later confirmed by the police investigations. And perhaps it is no coincidence that in the recording (even the “hidden” one) of 12 March 2024, which Sandrino had on a USB stick seized on the day of the arrest, De Francesco tried to backtrack: «He said “I’ll record you in such a way that…”, stock phrases, all things he wanted me to say. Sandro, I told you: in that period I had to get rid of some debts, some things… but I didn’t think of creating all that mess. Because all the things I said weren’t true about you anyway.”
The Bari Prosecutor’s Office didn’t believe it. He said it clearly in the hearing before the Review: he considers the March recording an attempt to muddy the investigations by De Francesco and Cataldo (both under house arrest since 4 April). What’s more: according to the prosecution, Cataldo knew that he was about to be arrested, and therefore attempted to construct an alternative narrative. This is why yesterday prosecutor Savina Toscani heard Leone herself as a witness. That is, the then marshal who was arrested in March 2020 on Sandrino’s complaint (he accused him of having asked him for money to cover up the investigation into the procurement of the Province of Bari) and who then, two years later, was contacted by De Francesco: the former councilor, furious with Cataldo, revealed to him the electoral system of his “master”. By having him (and being) arrested.
