Turin, Ream case – Mayor Chiara Appendino sentenced to six months. “I am suspended from the M5, my mandate continues”

Six months. This is the sentence imposed on the mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino, for the Ream case. Among the other defendants, the municipal budget councilor, Sergio Rolando, and the former chief of staff Paolo Giordana. The preliminary hearing judge also sentenced Ronaldo to six months, while Giordana was given eight months. The accusation is for abuse of office and false public deed. Appendino, Giordana and Rolando had requested the abbreviated procedure. The financial director of the municipality Paolo Lubbia, also accused, has opted instead for the ordinary rite. “I will complete my term as mayor. As provided by the code of ethics, I will self-suspend from the 5-star Movement ”, said the first citizen. Appendino was found responsible for an accusation against false ideological. Instead, two accusations of abuse in official documents and a second of falsification fell. Absolution because the fact does not exist of the accusation of abuse of power, acquittal for abuse and false ideology regarding the 2017 budget, but conviction for ideological falsehood in a public deed regarding the 2016 budget. The mayor was in the courtroom reading the sentence. His lawyers, Land Chiappero and Luigi Giulianoannounced the appeal ”. The tenacity of the sentence shows the irrelevance of the fact. We will read the reasons and appeal, confident that we can annul the sentence, ”Chiappero said. For Chiara Appendino, the mechanisms provided by the Severino Law: the mayor of Turin, in fact, was convicted only for false ideology and acquitted of the crime of abuse in office documents.

The judgment concerns the case of the old Westinghouse and a deposit of five million that Ream, a subsidiary of the Crt Foundation, had paid to the Municipality, at the time of the previous advice, to have a right of first refusal in the area affected by a relaunch project to build a convention center. In 2013, the project was awarded to another company. The five million had to be returned in 2016. For the indictment, the Appendino administration would not have included the five million paid as a deposit in the 2017 budget. One year and two months had been requested for the mayor and the commissioner, one year for the former chief of staff. “I learned with amazement and sadness from my sentence. Rest assured of my total innocence. I will wait to read the reasons for the sentence – says Giordana – but without a doubt I will appeal to assert in that forum what I think are my legitimate reasons ”.

Last February, the mayor herself announced that she would ask for the abbreviation, explaining that she was “firmly convinced that there was always operated in the interest of the community and the city. This choice of mine, which guarantees a faster definition of the process, is also in the interest of the city that I represent ”. The investigation was opened after a complaint by the leaders of the opposition groups. However, the sum, according to the prosecution, was not paid or entered in the budget, but was considered an off-balance-sheet debt. The hypothesis of a crime arose from an apostille included in the first budget signed by the 5-star board and refers to the history of the first. Westinghouse. The debt was inherited from the administration of Piero Fassino, but removed from the city’s accounting document. The defenses have always claimed to have acted correctly and in recent months they had handed over to the magistrates a ruling from the Court of Accounts which, in their opinion, supported the administration’s thesis. For years the area ex Westinghouse it was a headache for the administrations of Torino. Close to the Porta Susa station and the Palace of Justice, this area, where a brake and train components company was located, had to be rehabilitated in the early 2000s. The first project, to build the seat of the civic libraries, it was ruined for lack of money. The next floor, a huge convention center, with adjacent parking lots and supermarkets, had long been detained to appeal to the TAR. And it is in this context that the Ream affair was born, for which the mayor Chiara hangers, the chief of staff Paolo giordana and the budget councilor Sergio Rolando had been investigated.

At the time of the tender, to assign the design and construction of the new complex, competitors had to leave a deposit. Among these was also the Real estate asset management (ream), an asset management company whose shareholders are the main Piedmontese banking foundations, which had paid five million euros to the Turin City Council for the preliminary project. However, in 2013 the tender was awarded by Amteco & Maiora srl, who signs the preliminary contract with the Municipality. At that time the administration (Giunta Fassino) should have returned the five million euros with interest to Ream, but never did. The sum, however, is regularly recorded in the financial statements under the heading “debts” and in 2014 the company requests a refund. On two occasions, in 2014 and 2015, the director of the Territory and Environment Directorate informs the company that the money will be returned as soon as the concession award procedures have been completed, without prejudice to the competitor’s appeal. excluded, the new cooperative.

In 2016, having reached the mayor’s office, Appendino and his council are faced with the problem and at the end of the month with great difficulties. First of all, you must admit that you cannot stop the project (as you promised in the election campaign and as requested by some municipal committees), under pain of loss of almost 20 million euros, highly valued for civic coffers. And those 5 million euros are precious too, which is why the administration wants to postpone restitution. And this is where the problems arise. On November 22, his chief of staff, Giordana, wrote an email to the finance director Anna Tornoni not to write down the five million euros on the balance sheet: “As for Ream’s debt, I would exclude it from the reasoning for the moment, since discussions on this issue are open.” A few days later, the mayor sent him a letter: “Given the open negotiations with the city, there is no provision for a return.” However, on December 6, the president of the Ream Giovanni Quaglia, then elected president of the Crt Foundation, one of the Unicredit shareholders, requests that money again, an element that, for the Prosecutor’s Office, shows the absence of ongoing negotiations. In addition, for power, the finalization of the award took place in autumn 2016 (the appeal before the TAR, however, ended only a few days ago). The deputy prosecutor Marco Gianoglio therefore, he hypothesized that at that time the City should have returned the money, but did not act because Appendino, Rolando and Giordana had falsely claimed – according to the prosecutor’s hypothesis – that they had these negotiations underway.