Berlusconi, the troubled judicial history

The number of trials in which Silvio Berlusconi, who died today at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, was accused exceeds 30, in the reconstruction made by Ansa. He has been charged with crimes ranging from corruption to complicity in murder, from false accounting to extortion, up to vilification of the judicial order and child prostitution and which, except for one in which he was convicted, are closed or with the non having to proceed by prescription or with acquittal. Or with a filing or acquittal in the investigation phase or in the preliminary hearing.

The judicial history of the leader of Forza Italia
His judicial history began before his decision to go into politics and then continued even when he held public roles, the only sentence that became definitive is in 2013: 4 years in prison, 3 of which covered by pardon, for fraud tax of 7.3 million euros committed with the sale of Mediaset TV rights when he was Prime Minister. Sentence that forced him to ask for probation to the social services for 10 and a half months, net of the discount for early release, and led to his forfeiture as senator due to the Severino Law: his ineligibility lasted six years, until, in 2018, the Surveillance Court rehabilitated him.

The other trials followed different paths
Some ended up with the filing or acquittal already in the preliminary investigation phase, as happened in those in which his name was associated with the mafia (excluding the one that was still under investigation in Florence) or in the Mediatrade case.

Or with acquittal with formulas that are sometimes full or doubtful, as for one of the episodes of corruption contested in the case Ems/Ariosto, or with the prescription, thanks to both the dilatory technique used by his defense or by the lawyers of his co-defendants, and the granting of extenuating circumstances, and some norms such as the former Cirielli. Suffice it to mention the (prescribed) procedure with the story of the English lawyer at the centre David Mills, paid by him, was the hypothesis, for being a reticent witness before the judges who were trying him for the “Bribes to the Guardia di Finanza” – a case also known for the invitation to appear verbally communicated to him in November 1994 in Naples during a UN conference which he presided over as head of government and ended with acquittal “for not having committed the crime” – and for the All Iberian case closed in 1999 with a “not having to proceed” for prescription in the second instance. In the first instance, the Knight was sentenced to 2 years and 4 months for the illegal financing of the PSI leader Bettino Craxi.

The amnesties
But on Berlusconi’s judicial curriculum there have also been amnesties which, for example, have canceled an alleged embezzlement for the matter of the Macherio villa. In addition to the difficult cause of separation and divorce from Verónica Lariothe most odious trials for Silvio Berlusconi were, not so much those on the hypothesized corruption of the robes (for the Lodo Mondadori paid to Cir di Charles DeBenedetti almost 500 million euros) or on the sale of senators, but those that concerned sex scandals, i.e. the one that was still ongoing for induction to lie in the Bari “escort” case and the Ruby case.