The trial for alleged building abuses in the building in via Gioacchino Ventura where the Virgin gym is located will begin in 2024, in front of the monochrome court, which was finished under seizure in October 2020. In the judgment, with direct summons, only three of the defendants end up, while for another three, following the request of the same Prosecutor, the file has been archived.
Specifically, Filippo Basile, director of Euroleasing Company Spa, the company that owns the property, as well as client of the works, Antonino La Duca, designer and construction manager, and Tommaso Castagna, owner of the company that carried out them, go to the bar. The crime of building abuse is prescribed in 5 years and it seems very difficult – with the pending lawsuits in the single court – that a first instance sentence can be reached in time.
For three other suspects, all employees of the Municipality, insufficient evidence was found to support the accusation of abuse of office, and the file was therefore closed. This is Giuseppe Monteleone, defended by the lawyer Nino Zanghì, in his capacity as manager in charge of the one-stop shop for productive activities, between 2016 and 2017, of Antonino Zanca and Sergio Marinaro, the employees who had instructed the practice for the works of restructuring.
According to the reconstruction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office – the municipal police investigation had been coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Sergio Demontis and by the deputy Andrea Fusco – despite the statements, in the building that today houses the well-known fitness center (which is completely unrelated to the facts) a whole series of changes would have been made without any authorization. For example, an outdoor swimming pool of 64 square meters would have sprung up out of nowhere, but also an entire floor of almost 630 square meters. For this reason, on the orders of the investigating magistrate Fabio Pilato, the seizure of the property was triggered, which had triggered a long judicial battle until the seals had been definitively removed.
Also under seizure 60 thousand euros ended up because, according to the initial hypothesis of the prosecution, to carry out those works in via Ventura it would have been necessary to obtain a building permit and, therefore, the payment of the urbanization charges, while La Duca, favored by the employees of the Municipality, would have paid only 5,820 euros. A thesis which then found no further confirmation and which led to archiving.