Two rapes committed nine years apart on the same day, 8 May. And a third rape a year before the one for which he received the seven-year prison sentence, but this time in June. Simone Borgese, 39 years old, placed under house arrest in recent days in Rome on charges of having abused a student after making her get into his car, had already been arrested in 2015 for violence and robbery of a taxi driver and for these crimes he had served 7 years in prison in Rieti. But Borgese was also sentenced in 2022 to 2 years and 10 months for having abused a 17-year-old girl inside an elevator in Rome.
According to the latest victim’s story, the girl was waiting for the bus at a stop in Via della Magliana. After a few minutes a car approached her: the man inside asked her for directions to reach the Grande Raccordo Anulare in the direction of Eur. The girl provided the information through a road map app and then he told her to his cell phone was dead and he opened the car door for her and invited her to come with him. The 17-year-old got into the car, but after a few minutes the man asked her to lend him her phone: she never gave it back and started making advances. Then he took her to an isolated area and raped her. Subsequently he left her near Villa Bonelli. “I would never have gotten into that car – said the victim –. She manipulated me, making me feel guilty because I didn’t help her. It was a nightmare, I was trapped”.
The investigation started from the video surveillance cameras present in the path of the car. Once they had identified an identity, the police showed the girl a photo album in which she recognized the attacker. The judge of the preliminary investigations ordered Borgese under house arrest, despite the request for custody in prison made by the Prosecutor’s Office. Also warning of the possibility that the man may have committed other rapes since he was released.
Borgese, separated and with a young daughter, worked as a waiter in a restaurant in via Marcantonio Colonna. In 2012 he participated in Paolo Bonolis’s “Avanti un Altro” program.
On 8 May 2015 he got into the taxi of a 43-year-old woman in via Aurelia before 7am and, after simulating a ride to Fiumicino, he had her taken to viale Pescina Gagliarda in Piana del Sole, where he lived with his grandparents. There he raped and robbed the woman. He was tracked down within 48 hours because he had left his mobile phone number to another taxi driver since he didn’t have the money to pay for the ride and was subsequently reported. “I had a fit. I didn’t have the money to pay for the ride and I didn’t understand anything anymore. I ruined my life”, he said at the time to justify himself to investigators. The court sentenced him to seven years in prison and compensation of thirty thousand euros to the taxi driver and ten thousand to the Municipality of Rome, which was a civil party.
He was released on November 10, 2021. Just over a year later he received another sentence of two years and ten months for molesting a 17-year-old in an elevator. The violence against the minor dates back to 2014 and the girl recognized Borgese from the photo released after the rape of the taxi driver in 2015. In that case, however, the date of the abuse was different. Between the second and third violence, however, there is also the choice of the day of the commission of the crime which makes the seriality of the abuse more chilling.
