Benevento
The 8-month sentence, with an abbreviated sentence, after qualifying the charge of forgery in a lighter form, of the mayor of Vitulano, Raffaele Scariznzi, the indictment of 26 defendants (a 27th asked for a plea deal).
These are the requests of prosecutor Maria Colucci in the preliminary hearing against the twenty-eight people (and Gesesa) – the position of two others has already been removed and sent to the Prosecutor’s Office – involved in the two parts of the Noe carabinieri investigation into pollution of the rivers and on the entrustment to Gesesa, by the Municipality of Benevento, of the management of the integrated water service.
Obviously, completely opposite are the conclusions of the lawyer Dario Vannetiello, who will urge the acquittal of Scarinzi, called into question, with a municipal technician and a Gesesa official, because in March 2019 he would have signed a provisional authorization for the discharge of the purification plant backdated to 25 January 2019, avoiding an administrative fine for Gesesa because the authorization had already expired. A charge that Scarinzi has always rejected, even in the previous courtroom appointment, when he was questioned.
This will be followed by the start of the defense arguments, which will end on 22 July, when the preliminary hearing judge Roberto Nuzzo will give his opinion on Scarinzi, on the 2-year plea agreement of Francesco De Laurentiis (lawyers Angelo Leone and Andrea De Sanctis), from Benevento, an official of the Gesesa, and on the other defendants.
Civil parties are the Municipalities of Ponte and Moiano, with the lawyers Vincenzo Sguera and Nunzia Meccariello, and the Codici association – national and Campania level -, with the lawyers Ivano Giacomelli and Giuseppe Ambrosio.
The request for trial for the first section concerns Giorgia Dora Amato, from Benevento, Domenico Bernando, from Sant’Agata dei Goti, Rosanna Cocozza, from Benevento, Gelsomino De Angelis, from Ponte, Francesco De Laurentiis, from Benevento, Antonio Di Rubbo, of Benevento, Vincenzo Maria Falcione, of the province of Isernia, Piero Ferrari, of Rome, Carlo Alberto Iannace, of San Leucio del Sannio, Mario Lepore, of Benevento, Gianluca Luciani, of Pietrelcina, Claudio Maraschiello, of Benevento, Antonio Mazza, of Benevento, Michele Mazzarelli, di Faicchio, Giuseppe Melillo, di Vitulano, Massimo Messere, di Paduli, Antonio Pisanti, di Maddaloni, Anna Pontillo, di Calitri, Piero Porcaro, di Ceppaloni, Giovanni Rossi, di Venafro, Giovanni Ruggieri, di Castelvenere, Giovanni Tretola, from Sant’Angelo a Cupolo, defended by the lawyers Andrea De Sanctis, Raffaele Tecce, Vincenzo Regardi, Emanuela Serrato, Alfredo Scialò, Umberto Del Basso De Caro, Fabio D’Alessio, Beatrice Ucci, Umberto De Falco, Federica Ventorino, Viviana Olivieri, Angelo Leone, Luigi Romano, Ettore Marcarelli, Roberto Pulcino, Fabio Russo, Daniele Bonavita, Antonio Nobile, Salvatore Rubinetti, Antonio Lonardo, Grazia Luongo, Bruno Botti, Maria Carla Pagnotta and Riccardo Olivo (for Gesesa).
The charges contested for various reasons: environmental pollution, fraud in public supplies, aggravated fraud, illicit waste management, discharges of waste water without authorisation, abuse of office and ideological falsehood. Attention focused on the operational management of the plants by Gesesa, on the tests carried out on waste water samples, deemed only “documentally compliant” with the legal parameters”. A situation that would have caused the worsening of the health of the waterways.
Two names also appear in the second line: Piero Ferrari (lawyers Marcello D’Auria and Andrea De Sanctis), managing director of Gesesa until January 2019, and Giovanni Tretola (lawyer Vincenzo Regardi), technical head of Gesesa. They are joined by Oreste Montano (lawyer Marcello D’Auria), engineer, Giovanni Colucci (lawyers Giovanbattista Colucci and Raffaele Tecce), extraordinary commissioner of the Calore-Irpino Ato and since October 2018 liquidator commissioner of the same, Giovanni Moriello, geologist , Giovanni Quarantiello (lawyer Luigi Bocchino), group leader in the city council of one of the lists supporting mayor Mastella, first signatory of an amendment also signed by other representatives of the assembly, Pasquale Schiavo (lawyer Andrea De Sanctis), head of the maintenance service of Gesesa.
Various charges were proposed: for Ferrari, Colucci, Montano and Quarantiello that of abuse of office, proposed for a 2018 resolution – Pasquariello had proposed it to the council which had approved it, like the Council – on the identification of Gesesa as manager of the integrated water service. An initiative deemed illegitimate by the investigators, according to whom the award should have gone only to entirely public companies.
For Moriello and Schiavo, in competition with Montano and Ferrari, the accusation of abuse of office, for Tretola, in competition with Ferrari, Montano and Schiavo, that of forgery in relation to the technical and economic pre-feasibility study of the Benevento purification system . Finally, for Ferrari, Colucci and Montano an alleged race disturbance.
The list no longer includes Mario Pasquariello, municipal councilor for public works in 2018, and Maurizio Perlingieri, manager of the same sector of Palazzo Mosti – both defended by the lawyer Sergio Rando – whose position was removed due to the lack of interrogation after the conclusion of the investigation.
