The review court canceled the seizure of about 60 thousand euros from the company that owns the building in via Gioacchino Ventura where the “Virgin” gym is located, closed for months now, first due to the restrictions against Covid and then due to seals for alleged building abuses. The sum had been blocked because the Prosecutor considered it “the unfair profit obtained from the failure to pay the building costs” for the works carried out in the building and at the center of the investigation.
The investigating judge: “Municipal technicians in bad faith, they could not fail to know”
The judges spoke later cancellation with postponement by the Supreme Court, establishing that the interventions would consist in a simple restructuring, which does not provide for building costs, and not – as the accusation argues – for new works. The Review therefore accepted the arguments of the lawyer Segio Monaco, who assists Filippo Basile, owner of “Euro Real Estate spa” and ordered the release of the money.
In recent months, the Supreme Court had instead confirmed the seizure of a large part of the structure (currently only the padel fields are substantially accessible), considering the hypothesis of the deputy prosecutor Sergio Demontis and the deputy Andrea Fusco, who coordinate the investigation, founded. alleged building abuses. Beyond the judicial investigation, however, what many are wondering is whether (and when) the “Virgin” gym will ever reopen.
Unfortunately, the answer is uncertain and rather negative: in order to release the structure, in fact, it would be necessary to eliminate everything that would have been built in violation of the rules. And, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, this is, among other things, an entire floor of the gymnasium, which covers an area of over 600 square meters. Any work should still be requested and carried out by the company that owns the property. And it is not certain that it wants to proceed in this direction and, in any case, it is not even certain that with similar modifications to the building, “Virgin” believes it has sufficient space for its activities.
The first seizure of the building in via Ventura was taken a little more than a year ago, on 8 October: according to the prosecution, during the renovation of the building, an extra floor would have been created, even in violation of the anti-seismic regulations and with a consequent danger of collapse. The latter hypothesis, which was then considered by the investigating magistrate himself to be non-existent, ordering the release from seizure.
However, the gymnasium had not been reopened due to the anti Covid regulations, but then there was another twist: the review court, accepting the appeal of the prosecutors, had the seizure was again ordered, taken on January 14th. A decision then confirmed in the Supreme Court, where the judges had canceled with postponement only the seizure of the 60 thousand euros. Which, after a new examination by the Review, have now been released.
La “Virgin” it is alien to the investigation, in which, in addition to Basile, also the manager of the Single Desk of Productive Activities, Giuseppe Monteleone (already on trial for the alleged round of bribes to private building), two municipal employees who had instructed the practice for the restructuring, Antonino Zanza and Sergio Marinaro, the designer and construction manager, Antonino La Duca, and Tommaso Castagna, who carried out the works.
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