FOGGIA – The 11 defendants in the investigation into the alleged sale and illicit assignment of public housing have been sent to trial. This was decided yesterday morning by the preliminary hearing judge Marialuisa Bencivenga, accepting the request of prosecutors Roberta Bray and Enrico Infante: first hearing of the trials on 17 September. Former administrators and employees of the Municipality of Foggia are involved, as well as private citizens accused in various capacities of 15 charges for events in 2019/2020: attempted extortion to obtain the assignment of public housing; undue inducement to give/obtain 1500 euros to have a house; attempted undue inducement for a job in the Municipality; threats; damage; trafficking in illicit influence; false; occupation of housing; abuse of office, a crime in the process of being repealed and charged against 6 defendants including the former mayor Franco Landella. The 11 defendants deny the charges and the defenders had asked for their acquittal. The Municipality was a civil party; the former councilor Bove who is both accused and victim; and a man from Foggia who was allegedly asked for money to hire his daughter.
The 11 defendants The preliminary hearing judge ordered the trial of Franco Landella, 58 years old, former mayor until May 2021; Antonio Bove, 53 years old, former budget councilor with responsibility for housing policies; Anna Rosaria Ester De Nisi, 60 years old, employee of the municipal housing policies office; Ida Paranzino, 67 years old, from the same office; Domenico Napolitano, 30 years old; his father Luigi Napolitano, 57 years old; Giovanni Ferrazzano, 34 years old; Silvia Pacello, 74 years old; Lucia Livrieri, 58 years old; Luigi Cappuccio, 42 years old; Raffaella Ziccardi, 39 years old.
Bribes and threats – Bove and Domenico Napolitano are accused of undue inducement to give or promise benefits: in June 2019 the former councilor allegedly asked for and received 1500 euros from the co-accused “to make him available for an apartment in the Arca” (regional housing agency and living). Domenico Napolitano, his father Luigi and Ferrazzano respond to threats and attempted extortion against Bove: on 12 September 2019, Luigi Napolitano allegedly approached Bove near a city bar “telling him that he would make him pay to force him to assign public housing to his son Domenico”; the latter and Ferrazzano allegedly broke the window of the “Toyota Yaris” used by the councilor on the following 17 September, for which they are also liable for damage. It was precisely from the broken window (a police car intervened and put three people to flight) that the Police and Prosecutor’s Office investigations began, which continued with wiretaps and focused on the alleged sale and illicit assignment of public housing. In Bove, the Prosecutor’s Office also accuses him of attempted undue inducement because he allegedly asked a man from Foggia for between 10 thousand and 30 thousand euros, “representing to him that the sum was necessary to ensure that his daughter was hired as an employee by the Municipality or by a company controlled by the Municipality”.
The former mayor Landella, Bove, De Nisi, Paranzino, Livrieri and Pacello are accused of abuse: the process for the abrogation of the crime is underway in Parliament (the Senate said “yes” on 7 February) and in this case acquittals will follow because the fact is not foreseen by law as a crime. In the accusatory reconstruction, Pacello and Livrieri allegedly instigated Bove to have Livrieri assigned a house; the then councilor would have asked the municipal offices to give the woman accommodation, to which she would not have been entitled because she had already previously been assigned public residential housing; In February 2020, Landella apparently adopted a measure to assign public housing to a woman unrelated to the investigation, violating Legislative Decree 267/2000 “which reserves administrative and control acts exclusively for the managers of local authorities and not for political bodies”. management”; the municipal employees Paranzino and De Nisi would have signed a provision authorizing the extraordinary and temporary occupation of an accommodation in favor of Livrieri, while the latter would have prepared the deed for the mayor’s signature for the assignment of an accommodation to the woman unrelated to the investigation. The purpose of the alleged abuse was to favor and “provide an unfair financial advantage to Livrieri and to…” (the woman not involved in the investigation) “consisting in obtaining the availability of a council house”, with consequent “unjust damage to those who were entitled to or in any case of being preferred to the two women.”
The other crimes – Connected to this alleged abuse are the forgery charges brought against the two employees of the housing policy office. The prosecutors also accuse Livrieri and Pacello of trafficking in illicit influence: the former allegedly gave the latter a bracelet and a mobile phone “as consideration for Pacello’s illicit mediation towards Bove” to have Livrieri assigned a council house. Finally, Cappuccio and Ziccardi are accused of having “arbitrarily invaded a property owned by Arca Capitanata”.
