Cidas case, the day of the hearing. Pressure on the coop, two accused. Lodi and Bertarelli before the judge

The Cidas case returns to court for the second time in just over a year. The preliminary hearing of the proceeding in which the deputy mayor Nicola Lodi and the president of the cooperative Daniele Bertarelli are accused is set for today. The accusation made against them is undue inducement to give or promise benefits. The now well-known affair revolves around the alleged pressure that Lodi put on the co-defendant Bertarelli so that the latter took disciplinary measures against a Cidas employee, Daniel Servelli, guilty of having written defamatory phrases against the deputy mayor on social media (defamation for which Servelli was sentenced to pay a fine). Following these sentences – according to what was reconstructed by the prosecutor’s office – Lodi, with “abuse of his capacity as deputy mayor”, would have envisaged an effective power of interference and compromise of relations between the Municipality and Cidas (linked to the administration by procurement contracts for over one million six hundred thousand euros), giving Bertarelli the perception of being able to suffer unfavorable consequences in the event of non-compliance. A picture which, according to the public prosecutor Ciro Alberto Savino, would have led Bertarelli to “unduly” promise a prompt reaction against Servelli. The prosecutor’s office, having concluded its investigations, requested trial for both defendants.

Today, it was said, is the second preliminary hearing regarding the Cidas case. Initially, the case was opened for the crime of extortion, with the deputy mayor as the sole accused. Last February, however, at the end of the first preliminary hearing, the preliminary hearing judge Danilo Russo signed an order that returned the documents to the public prosecutor for a modification of the charge. In doing so, the preliminary hearing judge had also outlined a possible orientation, that of article 319 quater of the penal code. Therefore not extortion, for which there are no conditions, but the undue inducement to give or promise benefits. The prosecutor’s office then returned to the papers, extending the investigation to include Bertarelli. After the second closure of the investigation and the related request for indictment, the case is now preparing to return before a judge.