LIVORNO. The sentence of 23 years and six months of imprisonment has become definitive and James Casalatithe 49-year-old dock welder held responsible for the murder of the ninety-four-year-old former truck driver Nazzario Cerrai, was transferred to the Sughere prison. By decision of the court, in precautionary custody, in recent months he was under house arrest with an electronic bracelet.
The sentence
«The Carabinieri of the central Livorno station – we read in a note from the Carabinieri – tracked down and arrested the man after the arrest order from the general prosecutor’s office of the Florence court of appeal». The judges, also finding him guilty in the second degree, last September also sentenced him to pay compensation of 90,000 euros to his family (50,000 to his son and 20,000 to each of his two grandchildren). The college – chaired by the magistrate Alessandro Nencini – accepted the request of the Attorney General, who had deemed the quantification of the colleagues from Livorno sufficient with the concession of equivalent generic mitigating circumstances, a circumstance that allowed the welder to avoid life imprisonment. For the ex-partner Ilenia Ricci instead – a friend and former carer of the elderly man, already acquitted in the first instance for the crime – the judges had reduced the sentence, which dropped from the initial two years and four months to two years for a purely technical issue: the crimes charged to the fifty-two year old, in fact, they were the theft and receiving of the gold hidden in the home of the former lorry driver, but to punish the former after the Cartabia Reform, a complaint is needed and the pensioner, victim of the crime, certainly could not do so.
The crime
The crime occurred on August 27, 2021 in the elderly man’s apartment, in via Garibaldi, with the couple arrested by the police after a week. Initially, when the son found his father’s body in the house, one could also think of a natural death, given the advanced age of the former truck driver, but the forced bathroom cabinet where the precious items were hidden immediately directed the military towards the crime trail. The desperate need for money to buy the drugs explains the motive. Casalati, after having obtained the keys to the house from Ricci, showed up at the elderly man’s house, but without using them and having the entrance opened spontaneously, killing him after the loan was refused. Taking away the precious items that were never found and therefore sold, hidden in a drawer behind the bathroom mirror at home. Cerrai, who knew Ricci very well as her former carer, remained on excellent terms with her and they spoke and frequented each other often in the period before the tragedy. To the point that he would have lent her money and – according to the prosecution – would not even have reported her after having noticed the disappearance of a sum of two thousand euros hidden in the same place. «The victim – the prosecutor explained Peter Peruzzi, the head of the investigation, during the indictment – was so generous that despite having noticed the thefts, she continued to give them the money”. «Casalati and Ricci represented an ill-matched couple – the deputy prosecutor continued in the courtroom – their situation was out of control, they welcomed drug dealers into their homes and made an immoderate use of drugs». According to the investigators, drug addiction pushed the welder to commit the crime. Drug addiction from which he recovered.
