Caserta
A pact to divide up public works entrusted by the Municipality of Caserta but also a clear conflict of interests between public and private ones which sees the trading of votes in the background: this is at the basis of the investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Santa Maria Capua Vetere and of the Carabinieri of the investigative unit of the capital, which this morning led to house arrest the municipal councilor Massimiliano Marzo, also owner of a construction company based in Caserta, the managers, Franco Biondi and Giovanni Natale, who have been in service for many years, the municipal employee Giuseppe Porfidia and the entrepreneur Gioacchino Rivetti.
The accusations contested by the Prosecutor’s Office (prosecutor Pierpaolo Bruni and deputy prosecutor Carmine Renzulli) and confirmed by the investigating judge Daniela Vecchiarelli in the precautionary custody order notified to the suspects, are variously related to corruption and falsification of public documents. The investigation caused a real earthquake in Caserta, after that of 2021, when other Municipality managers were arrested due to an affair of rigged waste tenders and the mayor Carlo Marino was investigated, who in a few weeks – on 9 July – he will face the resulting trial as a defendant at the court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere. In today’s investigation, those under investigation include the other municipal manager Luigi Vitelli and above all the deputy mayor Emiliano Casale, who is responsible for vote swapping in relation to the 2021 municipal elections which led to Marino’s confirmation. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Casale would have asked the entrepreneur Gennaro Rondinone (under investigation) for the vote in October 2021, promising him in exchange for the assignment of works, which then happened given that in September 2022 Rondinone was assigned by the councilor Marzo, and on a mandate of Casale, the works at the state nursery school in the Santa Barbara hamlet. According to the investigating judge, the investigation activity revealed “an alarming scenario of private management of public resources also through corrupt practices”. Also highlighting the “stubbornness and unscrupulousness of the suspects who, due to the different qualifications they held, obtained the satisfaction of private interests”. The precautionary measure carried out today represents the epilogue of an investigative activity that began in 2022, coordinated by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of Caserta and identified – in the preliminary investigation phase – “a picture characterized by criminal conduct that would have altered or disrupted the normal and lawful progress of the public works assignments of the Municipality of Caserta”.
The reaction of the mayor Carlo Marino
“We have full faith in the work of the judiciary and the police. At the same time we hope that the people involved in the investigation, which concerns individual episodes, can clarify their position as soon as possible”, said the mayor of Caserta, Carlo Marino . “The work of the Administration – added the mayor – continues regularly, we guarantee full administrative continuity. The delegations of the Managers involved will be temporarily attributed to the other managers in service and to the General Secretary. I would like to remind you that the episodes referred to by the heads of accusation concern events that occurred before July 2023, the month in which I issued the new decrees assigning delegations to managers, applying the anti-corruption law”.
