He had had sexual intercourse in the barracks with a woman, declaring that he had to perform a service for “urgent and unpostponable” reasons and for this reason he had been convicted of fraud and forgery. Eleven months in the first instance were cancelled on appeal on Friday evening. “The fact does not exist,” wrote the court, exonerating the 52-year-old carabiniere who at the time of the events – January 11, 2017 – had let two women enter the barracks, going off with one of them.
The prosecution charged him with the crime of fraud and forgery. With his statements he had deceived the guard, the prosecution claimed. But for that presence in the barracks he had also been paid an hour of overtime equal to 16 euros, a circumstance that led the soldier to end up on the register of suspects and then to leave the first-degree trial with a heavy sentence, even if with a suspended sentence.
The episode had cost the man, who is now on duty outside the region, suspension, following the complaint of sexual violence filed by one of the two ladies who entered the barracks that night. Her accusation was later revealed to be unfounded, so much so that the proceedings were archived and the woman – a 37-year-old from Ravenna – was convicted in the first instance of slander.
A consensual relationship, therefore, which, while clearing the carabiniere of the much more serious accusation of sexual abuse, did not prevent him from being sent to trial for that entry deemed illegitimate and for the remuneration obtained. Accusations that the defense, represented by the lawyer Enrico Ferri, rejected already in the first instance on all fronts, asking for the acquittal of the accused.
According to the lawyer of the carabiniere, there was no fraud because the soldier actually carried out some paperwork, and he did it during overtime. He therefore did not receive an unfair profit, even though he had stayed with the two women for about a quarter of an hour that night, and not for reasons related to the service. In the appeal, the lawyer points out that, since the soldier lived in the barracks, he had free access and his entry into the offices was essentially due to naivety – to satisfy the woman’s request and not to the desire to defraud. Furthermore, that evening the carabiniere actually carried out official duties. A thesis that, pending the reasons for the sentence, seems to have been accepted by the judges. “We are very satisfied with the acquittal – says the lawyer – which accepts what we have argued from the beginning”.
