The scandal of confiscated property, former judge Silvana Saguto sentenced to 8 and a half years

“I tell you from experience, as the son of a magistrate, up to the third degree of trial eight thousand magistrates defend one.” This was alleged by Walter Virga, son of Judge Tommaso Virga and judicial administrator in one of the wiretaps of the investigation that revealed the scandal over the handling of confiscated assets. Today, however, the Caltanissetta court did not follow this line and sentenced Silvana Saguto, former president of the Prevention Measures section of the Palermo court, to 8 and a half years, at the request of the deputy prosecutor Gabriele Paci and the alternates Maurizio Bonaccorso . and Claudia Pasciuti, 15 years and 4 months: the charge of criminal association fell. The accused will also have to pay half a million euros to the presidency of the Council of Ministers, which filed a civil action.

After more than five hours in the council room, the Caltanissetta court, chaired by Andrea Catalano, delivered the first verdict on one of the most relevant investigations in recent years, which had stood out as one of the fundamental axes in the fight against the mafia. – that is, the section that tries to take away from the bosses what they most appreciate: their houses, their money and their businesses – it would have been managed instead in a clientelistic way and how it would have happened – for reasons of economic interest – a kind of division of judicial administrations.

The sentence: 12 sentences and 3 acquittals

In addition to Silvana Saguto (assisted by the lawyer Ninni Reina and now expelled from the judiciary), the judges also sentenced the former prefect of Palermo, Francesca Cannizzo, to 3 years, Lorenzo Caramma, husband of the former judge, to 6 years 2 months and 10 days, then he inflicted 7 and a half years on lawyer Gaetano Cappellano Seminara (defended by lawyer Sergio Mónaco). Walter Virga (one year and 10 months), judicial administrator Roberto Santangelo (6 years 2 months and 10 days), Colonel del Dia Rosolino Nasca (4 years), Professor Roberto Di Maria (2 years 8 months and 20 days) , Carmelo Provenzano, professor at the Kore University of Enna (6 years and 10 months), his wife Maria Ingarao (4 years and 2 months), sister-in-law Calogera Manta (4 years and 2 months), Saguto’s son, Emanuele Caramma (6 months). The father of former magistrate Vittorio Saguto, Aulo Gabriele Gigante, and judge Lorenzo Chiaramonte (defended by lawyer Fabio Lanfranca) were acquitted. For the first two, it was the same accusation that requested acquittal, while for the magistrate the prosecutor had requested a sentence of two and a half years.

The investigation

The investigation was born in Caltanissetta, when investigations were started on the management of one of the many judicial administrations entrusted by Saguto, specifically the one managed by the young Virga and linked to the assets seized from the Rappa family, such as the “Nuova Sport Car”. When the prosecutors realized that there might be irregularities, they sent the documents to Palermo. But the investigation soon returned to Caltanissetta, as magistrates in the capital were faced with the involvement of their fellow servants in the city.

From that moment on, the phones of Virga the father, Saguto, but also those of her husband, Chaplain Seminara -who had been working with the former judge on preventive measures for years, managing dozens of judicial administrations- and Carmelo. Provenzano. Errors were also placed in Walter Virga’s “Prodea” law firm and, obviously, in Saguto’s office within the courthouse.

In one of the wiretaps, the former judge complained to his children: “We have to talk, because our economic situation has reached the total limit, it is no longer possible … They cannot make me spend 12, 13, 14 thousand euros to month”. We do not have this income because we are in debt ”. Then it was discovered, among other things, that Saguto would also have made the purchase without paying the invoice in a seized business, accumulating a debt of about 18,000 euros.

The process

The sentence issued today puts a stop, in the first instance, on a three-year trial, with more than one hundred hearings and dozens of witnesses. Silvana Saguto’s story begins in September 2015, when the first search was made at the offices of the former president of the Prevention Measures section of Palermo. Today expelled from the judiciary, according to the accusation “was at the head of a perverse and extensive system” of management of seized assets. A system that, for prosecutors, would have been made up of magistrates, lawyers, prefects, chiefs of police.

For the Public Ministry of Nissen, the former judge “was the central figure of a stable association bond”, demonstrated by the “frequency of the subjects’ relationships”. Silvana Saguto allegedly “exploded and mortified her role as magistrate.” For the prosecution, the office of the Preventive Measures section of the Palermo Court “was transformed into an employment office” and “the judicial administrators had a predatory behavior.”

For the defense of the former magistrate, on the other hand, represented by the lawyer Ninni Reina, an “anomalous process was launched, both in quantity and quality.” Hence the request for acquittal “because the fact does not exist.”

Accuse and control

For her part, Silvana Saguto called for honest conduct and also cited judges Falcone and Borsellino as her reference points: “I organized discussions between Riina and collaborators of justice such as Buscetta, Mutolo and Marchese. together with men like Rocco Chinnici, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino who, I want to remember, loved me incredibly ”.

Twists were not lacking. In one of the hearings, the former president of Prevention Measures appeared with a blue notebook in hand. Not just any block, but the one in which – according to him – he would have written down the names of the people who defended the charges and their relatives “godparents”, or other magistrates. However, the newspaper was never recorded and the Prosecutor’s Office cut it short: “I would have preferred that today’s newspaper be deposited in memory but it was not. It would have been more elegant than shaking it …”.

Not only Silvana Saguto

The prosecutor asked for the sentence of 9 years and 10 months for Caramma, Saguto’s husband, and 6 months for their son Emanuele. For the lawyer Cappellano Seminara, I asked for 12 years and 3 months in prison, for Provenzano 11 years and 10 months, for Santangelo 10 years and 11 months, for Virga, 2 years, for Di Maria 4 years and 4 months, for Ingrao 5 years , for Manta 4 and a half years, for Nasca 8 years, for Cannizzo 6 years, for Chiaramonte 2 and a half years. The Prosecutor had also requested two acquittals: for Aulo Gabriele Gigante and for Saguto’s father, Vittorio.

Before the conclusion of the indictment, the prosecution had also requested the transmission of the documents by perjury against 14 witnesses who testified. Among them are former prefect Stefano Scammacca, judges Giuseppe Barone and Daniela Galazzi, judicial administrator Giuseppe Rizzo, lawyers Vera Sciarrino, Alessio Cordova and Dario Majuri, accountants Roberto Nicitra and Gianfranco Scimone, employees of Motor Oil Dario and Giuseppe Trapani, and three collaborators of Professor Provenzano, Laura Greca, Marta Alessandra and Alessandro Bonanno.