Abbreviated procedure for the brothers from Potenza for the houses taken over at a discount following a bankruptcy managed by their father
POTENZA – A few years ago, the party organized in the family wine shop, with the cream of the Lucanian judiciary, caused a sensation. To welcome the then president of the National Magistrates Association Luca Palamara. And a few years later various assignments stopped arriving from the judicial offices in Potenza, to make room for the painful notes: with the arrest, in less than 3 months, first of the father and then of the son.
It is a surprising parable drawn by the latest investigations of the capital’s prosecutor’s office for the Molinari family: the head of the family, Fernando, one of the most well-known civil lawyers of the Potenza court; and his two sons Gianluca, a lawyer himself, and Pierluigi, the soul of the Vintage wine shop (not involved in the investigations, ed), a stone’s throw from the police station.
The last stroke of the pen appeared on Wednesday morning, when Gianluca ended up under house arrest for a crime committed in his capacity as judicial administrator of the funeral home confiscated from Giovanni Quaratino.
But the misfortunes had already begun in March, when the father also ended up under house arrest accused of having sold off to his children the assets of a company of which he had been appointed, again by the Court, as bankruptcy trustee.
On Wednesday morning this latest case has already landed before the judge Ida Iura for the preliminary hearing. Just as the formalities linked to the execution of the precautionary measures for the Quaratino affair were being completed.
In response to the request for indictment made by the Potenza prosecutors, therefore, the option for the abbreviated trial of the two Molinari brothers was formalized. While the father and the other defendants will be judged with the ordinary rite.
The magistrate’s verdict, including the sentence for the two brothers, is expected no earlier than July 4th. On that date, in fact, the continuation of the hearing was set after a defense objection on the usability of some investigative documents.
The interrogation for Gianluca in front of the investigating judge Lucio Setola has been scheduled for the beginning of next week. As part of the investigation into the “clandestine” management of the Quaratino funeral home.
Between 2003 and 2023, the lawyer appears to have accumulated 14 different judicial appointments as bankruptcy trustee of companies in the capital and surrounding areas. Including some better known as Mcl Multi commerciale Lamorgese – srl of the historic family of traders from the historic center of Potenza.
The one for the Padre Pio funeral home, therefore, is the only appointment as judicial administrator following a confiscation measure adopted pursuant to anti-mafia legislation. Since the owner, Giovanni Quaratino, already convicted for mafia in the early 90s of the last century, was unable to demonstrate the legitimate origin of the capital invested in the company.
The 73-year-old and his daughter Marilena, who have been sentenced to prison and house arrest respectively, are expected to appear in court today.
They are accused of embezzlement for having stolen just under 80 thousand euros from the judicial administration of the family business, with the complicity of Molinari. Continuing to run the business as “their” thing.
The investigators of the Lucanian Anti-Mafia have identified, in particular between 2019 and 2022: «hundreds of episodes of appropriation of sums of money amounting to tens of thousands of euros paid in total by relatives of deceased people who commissioned funeral services with the funeral agency “Padre Pio” funeral.
However, it wasn’t just the relatives of the deceased who related to the father and daughter as if they were still the owners of the company. But also: “public bodies, trade unions, trade associations, municipal police, owners and managers of funeral homes located in other territories for services evidently also rendered to the latter”.
«Confirming – according to the accusation – the absence of any real management discontinuity between the period in which the “Padre pio Società Cooperativa” funeral agency was in the legitimate availability of the Quaratino family and that in which the judicial administration was arranged of assets first seized and then confiscated”.
