False in public deed: convictions confirmed

Castellamonte, the former mayor Paolo Mascheroni and the former head of the technical office made a tender for the works already carried out

CASTELLAMONTE

The former mayor of Castellamonte, Paolo Mascheroni and the former head of the municipal technical office, Aldo Maggiotti, were definitively condemned for false ideology in a public act in a story that had, at the time, caused a real political earthquake .

The Court of Cassation, on Tuesday, rejected their appeal in relation to the eight-month prison sentence ordered by the Turin Court of Appeal in December 2020.

The facts: the former mayor, son of Giacomo, an unforgotten Christian Democrat politician and former mayor of the city of ceramics and Maggiotti had ended up on trial – with the then deputy mayor Giovanni Maddio (also sentenced to eight months in the first degree, sentence confirmed on appeal) – for a tender relating to asphalting works in the center of Castellamonte, carried out between 2013 and 2014. The roads in question were via Montebello, via Rantano, via Masero and Canton Talentino. Why the accusation and the subsequent conviction confirmed in the three levels of trial? Because – according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, alerted by a detailed anonymous letter and by the many gossip citizens – that resolution was made and signed when the work had already been carried out. The construction sites concerned asphalting for 88 thousand euros. In summary: first the works were done and then the resolution to contract them out.

“Very urgent work”, the accused had repeatedly stressed. But according to the investigations, the tender was made, in fact, a posteriori. In the first instance, both Mascheroni, Maddio and Maggiotti were acquitted of the much heavier charge of an auction disruption.

“The applicants were accused of having falsely declared in their respective capacities as mayor and Head of the technical office of the Municipality of Castellamonte, through the drafting and signing of the technical report, the bill of quantities and the minutes of the municipal council resolution of 28 November 2014, that some main streets of the Municipality needed to be repaired with restoration interventions, where the repair work had already been carried out », write the judges of the Supreme Court. The lawyers of Paolo Mascheroni and Aldo Maggiotti had appealed in relation to the unusability of a report of summary information provided by Maurilio Savoia Carlevato, an entrepreneur initially investigated but then immediately filed, indicating that “there was no evidence that the applicants were aware of the state of the roads in relation to which they had approved the execution of the works ».

The judges of the Supreme Court further note: “the appeals are inadmissible as they are partly generic and partly manifestly unfounded”.

The use of the report was judged to be correct and for the configuration of the crime of false ideology “generic willful misconduct is sufficient, to be considered to exist in the presence of the false attestation, contained in the deed, of an investigation never actually carried out”.

In the final judgment, the plaintiffs were also sentenced to pay the legal costs: € 3,000 in favor of the Cassa delle finende and the reimbursement of the entertainment and defense costs incurred by the civil party (another € 1,500).

The story, politically, aroused a crawl space and still today is discussed above all because in fact it sanctioned incurable fractures in the municipal administration. In a meeting of the council, in fact Mascheroni would have invited the former councilor Bersano who immediately highlighted the obvious anomaly “to sign, without raising unnecessary fuss”. That sentence, quoted in the sentence, is emblematic. –