Three years for fraud against the state. This is the sentence pronounced by the judge of the court of Lucca, Giuseppe Pezzuti against Mario Puglia, newly elected mayor of Vagli Sotto. The mayor of the mountain municipality of Garfagnana was sentenced to pay a provisional amount of 200 thousand euros to the INPS and 100 thousand euros to the INAIL, immediately enforceable, at the end of a trial which saw him in the dock, assisted by the lawyer Enrico Marzaduri. The judge fully accepted the request of prosecutor Antonio Mariotti, head of the investigation that brought Puglia to the dock. The defense is waiting to read the reasons for the sentence but has already announced that an appeal will be lodged against a sentence deemed unfair against the mayor of Vagli Sotto.
The accusation was made in the context of an investigation relating to the disability pension obtained by Puglia and which according to the accusation was received without being due. In particular the disability certificates issued in Puglia following three accidents at work had come to the attention of the prosecutor’s office when the current mayor was guardian of the Enel dam in Vagli, at the end of the 80s. According to those documents – which according to the prosecution were tampered with -, Puglia would have a recognized disability due to cognitive deficit and trauma-related pathologies. According to the accusations made by the prosecutor, however, those certificates would have been retouched on the typewriter and therefore not valid for the purposes of receiving the disability pension.
Opposing the thesis of defense, represented in the courtroom by the lawyer Marzaduriwho in the previous hearing had requested acquittal with the full formula of Puglia, because he was unrelated to the facts contested by the prosecution. According to the lawyer, in fact, there is no evidence to demonstrate that those certificates were retouched by the new mayor and that the documents were issued regularly by Inail.
Derivative certificates, as the defense summarized, from three separate incidents of which Puglia was allegedly the victim, over the course of approximately 36 months in his role as guardian of the dam. However, this is the first degree sentence: the mayor of Vagli Sotto will be able to demonstrate his total non-involvement in the accusations in the next levels of judgement. The defense is in fact intent on appealing the sentence.
“After 72 acquittals, today the judge sentenced me in first instance as requested by the prosecutor to 3 years for a scam committed 63 and 40 years ago,” commented the mayor of Vagli.
“I have never made any alterations to documents”, Puglia defends itself in a post referring to disability certificates. “In any case, even if this were the case, they would certainly be barred after 60 years. I respect the Judge’s decision and reiterate my absolute trust in the judging judiciary. My lawyers Marzaduri and Cardone will appeal. I believe my opponents present like a group of fans who were thinking of my suspension as mayor will remain barking at the moon”.
