Pizza chef yes but also windsurfing instructor for disabled children. A year and a half after his arrival in Italy, Chico Forti leaves prison to work. He will make pizzas at Verona and he will return to his old love, the surfboard, but this time on Lake Garda instead of the ocean. Four months ago the Venice Surveillance Court had denied him conditional release, but now it grants him the so-called article 21 of the penitentiary system: the permission to work and carry out voluntary activities outside.
So here is the new chapter in the human and judicial story of Chico Forti, first a windsurfing champion in Miami, then a television producer and finally a murderer in the judicial maelstrom following the death of Dale Pike, son of Anthony Pike, with whom Forti was negotiating the acquisition of the Pikes Hotel in Ibiza. The body, completely naked, was found on Sewer Beach in Miami with two .22 caliber gunshots to the back of the head. It was 1999. Found guilty of the crime of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Florida Supreme Court 25 years ago, he was then welcomed as an excellent prisoner even by Giorgia Meloni upon his arrival in Italy, and for this reason challenged by the other prisoners for alleged privileges. A few weeks after his arrival he was also allowed to visit his elderly mother in Trento: another trail of controversy again due to the supposed privileged treatment.
Last June Forti obtained permission to attend the prison’s study rooms, even though he is not enrolled in any school cycle. Montorio’s management had authorized it because he is writing a book. In the meantime, he and his lawyers were preparing the application for conditional release, a measure that allows a convicted felon to serve the remaining sentence under probation.
