The investigation resulting from the complaint of a pensioner from Fontanafredda: the accusation is of aggravated fraud and self-laundering in competition
PORDENONE. An investigation by the Pordenone prosecutor’s office was born from the complaint of an eighty-year-old pensioner from Fontanafredda, which involved the brothers Monica and Ludovico Bernini, children of the former transport minister and former president of the Veneto Region Carlo Bernini, who died in 2011.
Gup Monica Biasutti sent the two brothers to trial for the hypothesis of aggravated fraud and self-laundering in competition. As an alternative to the scam, prosecutor Monica Carraturo contested the hypothesis of receiving stolen goods against Ludovico Bernini. The pensioner told investigators that he had handed Monica Bernini, advised by her bank manager as an expert in the sector, four diamonds to put them up for sale. According to the accusation, Ludovico Bernini (whom the pensioner never met) would have received the diamonds from his sister to have them purchased by an unidentified third party.
After a few months, not having obtained the payment, the elder filed a complaint. The lawyer Giorgio Castellani, who assists Monica Bernini, replied that it is a mere civil law issue: if anything, there was a delay in payment, but no consideration had been agreed. The pensioner believed on the basis of the certificates in his possession that the four diamonds were worth 220 thousand euros, while at the Bolaffi auction house they had been put up for sale, without finding a buyer, for 170 thousand euros.
Having reached an agreement between the parties on the price, lower than that previously requested, before the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, the pensioner withdrew the complaint and did not appear as a civil party. However, the proceedings continued ex officio. The defense plans to demonstrate the groundlessness of the accusations at the trial that will begin on 7 September before the collegiate court of Pordenone.