They swiped their badges instead of colleagues, at the gym or shopping: Perugia, convicted civil servants

PERUGIA – “The false attestation of the public employee regarding the presence in the office reported on the time cards or in the attendance sheets is fraudulent conduct, objectively suitable for misleading the administration to which they belong as regards the presence in the workplace, and integrates the crime of aggravated fraud where the civil servant leaves without showing, by stamping the time card or magnetic card, the periods of absence”.

The Court of Appeal underlines this without hesitation in confirming the first instance sentence, i.e. one year in prison and a fine of 800 euros, to some civil servants who walked away from the office with other colleagues who clocked in on their own.

«What, therefore, distinguishes the crime referred to in art. 55 quinquies of Legislative Decree no. 165/2001 from the crime of fraud pursuant to art. 640 of the criminal code is the sole presence of the damage, which constitutes an event of the crime pursuant to art. 640 of the Criminal Code, assuming that the agent aims to make an unfair profit, causing damage to the taxable person, which may also consist in the failure to acquire an economic benefit that the taxable person promised to achieve or in even “only “in terms of image or violation of the fiduciary relationship or even of prejudice to the organization” argue the judges in sentence number 43 of 2023 and which appeared in the “criminal news” published by the Court of Appeal.

«In the presence of the constituent elements of the crime, the legislator allows the joint application of the two cases, in the light of the reserve clause “without prejudice to the provisions of the Penal Code”. In the present case, the formal concurrence between the aggravated fraud and the case referred to in art. 55 quinquies of Legislative Decree no. 165/2001 in the light of the fact that when the employees went out they stamped the “badges” one in place of the other when the owners had already left» conclude the judges of Appeal in confirming the provisions of the first instance.

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