Padua. They deceived the doctor to get sick leave and sell pizza: husband and wife condemned

PADUA – The judges of the Court of Appeal have confirmed the conviction in first instance for the “smart” spouses of the fake medical certificates. In December 2021, in an abbreviated trial before the Gup Domenica Gambardella, the penitentiary policeman Luigi Mollica, 50 years old, and his wife Teresa Scopece, 46 years old, were respectively sentenced to one year and six months, and ten months. However, their general practitioner with the clinic in Cadoneghe was acquitted, through the formula because the fact does not exist.

The crafty medical certificates: fake illnesses to dedicate themselves to other business

The public prosecutor Sergio Dini, in charge of the investigations, had brought them before the judge for the preliminary hearing, accusing them in various capacities of the crimes of aggravated and continuous fraud, false ideology and violation of the law on public employment. The spouses, resident in Cadoneghe, they regularly deserted their respective jobs by simulating non-existent illnesses and dedicating himself full time to their takeaway pizzeria in Arcella. The doctor was acquitted because he too was deceived by the false illnesses of the husband and wife. For a couple of years, from 2016 until February 2018, Mollica and Scopece had long periods of absence from work. He, a penitentiary officer on duty at the Due Palazzi prison, justified his absences from service with non-existent illnesses, even going so far as to certify the presence of disabling pathologies. Mollica practically never set foot in prison during 2016, totaling 300 days of absence. The following year the total number of absences stopped at 112 days, finally another 6 days between January and February 2018, that is, until the Prosecutor’s Office opened a case against him. In most cases the prison officer turned to the general practitioner, who was also deceived, but when necessary he turned to the doctors on duty or the health workers at the military hospital in Padua, misleading them too. His wife Teresa Scopece also behaved the same way. She was employed in a metalworking company in Limena and continually had medical certificates issued. From 16 February 2016 to 30 June 2017 the woman obtained sick leave twenty-one times, often of long duration. At the time of the events, the couple worked regularly during periods of illness at the take-away pizzeria “All’Imperatore” in via Giovanni d’Alemagna, in Arcella. And according to the numerous photos published on Facebook, both the prison officer and his wife were in excellent health. Not only that, because during the preliminary hearing the judge had entrusted the medical examiner Antonello Cirnelli with the expertise to ascertain whether or not the pathologies with which the Cadoneghe general practitioner declared the policeman and his wife ill, and therefore not capable of go to work. And it emerged that the spouses did not suffer from any serious or disabling illness.

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