LIVORNO. “The fact does not constitute a crime.” Alessandro Perini, municipal councilor of Fratelli d’Italia reconfirmed in the last elections, did not defame Veronica Del Giovane and Lenny Bottai, respectively president and vice-president of Spes Fortitude, the company that manages the Fermi municipal gym. This is stated in the sentence of Judge Rosa Raffaelli, pronounced last March 7th. The reasons arrived only a few days ago.
But how did we arrive at this epilogue? Having won a municipal tender for the management of the gym in May 2018, Bottai and Del Giovane immediately spent money on its renovation and, consequently, were unable to pay the rent to the Municipality until July 2018. 2021. In the same year, it was Marcella Amadio, local leader of Fratelli d’Italia and now back in the city council, who revealed the non-payment of the monthly fee at a press conference, a party colleague of Perini who had become aware of the fact through documents anonymous found in the mailbox.
Perini – who, as a councillor, had already noted the non-payment of the Spes Fortitude through access to the documents in April 2021 – after Amadio’s revelation he wrote on a public Facebook page that the managers “had never paid even a euros to the Municipality of Livorno for the rent”. From there, also a public confrontation on social media in the comments on a newspaper post, between Bottai and Perini. Hence the formal complaint by Bottai and Del Giovane towards the city councilor: Perini was accused of aggravated defamation for what was written on social media, as well as having disclosed sensitive data relating to the non-payment of the gym by Spes Fortitude.
On both points the sentence exonerated Perini. For the issue of the disclosure of sensitive data, in fact, the sentence says that “beyond any reasonable doubt”, the same documents were “known to a plurality of subjects and at that time were the subject of question by the municipal offices”. According to the judge, therefore, it was not Perini who passed the documents to Amadio. And for defamation, we read: «The statements made by Perini are not directly offensive». «I was fully acquitted. To use a metaphor for the sport that Bottai practices, boxing, we can say that he was knocked out.”
Perini’s result is sardonic. And he also takes it out on the Municipality. «He said he wanted to see the reasons for the sentence to understand why I had been acquitted. Now that the reasons are available, I would like to be thanked for having done a service for the citizens of Livorno. The reasons prove me right about everything, I had the right to do everything I did. Indeed, the obligation: the municipal councilor must carry out control activities.” Bottai and the lawyer who defended him, Francesco Donati, also commented on the sentence: «According to the judge, Perini’s conviction is not possible because there is no certainty that it was he who passed the documents to Amadio, and the councilor exercised the right to criticize news appearing in the newspapers. But during the press conference Amadio read the documents of the Municipality to which only Perini had had access. If someone from the municipality had released these documents, without a formal request for access, it would be a crime.” L
