The aggravating circumstance of the mafia method falls Keu processrelating to alleged conditions on public procurement. The investigating judge of Florence Fabio Gugliotta has entrepreneur Graziano Cantini sentenced in summary to 5 years and 8 months and a fine of 4,600 euros and a 5-year ban from holding public officeowner of Cantini Marino srl of Vicchio del Mugello (Florence) on charges of criminal association, illicit competition with threats and extortion. Cantini will also have to compensate the entrepreneur deemed to have been removed with threats from the management of public construction sites for the construction of the provincial road 429 Empoli Castelfiorentino: while waiting for the civil court to establish the amount of compensation, he will have to pay a provisional sum of 15 thousand euros. The request for compensation from the Cgil union was excluded. The prosecutor Lorenzo Gestri had requested an 8-year sentence, but the investigating judge excluded the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method and the sentence was reduced. “We are satisfied with the sentence – said Cantini’s lawyer Federico Bagattini -, the judge dropped the aggravating circumstance of mafia and rejected the compensation in favor of the Cgil union which considered Cantini’s company a sort of corruption center even with its employees”.
The investigating judge has sent ten other defendants to trial, including Nicola Verdiglione, Cantini’s main collaborator, the entrepreneur Francesco Lerose from Crotone, Nicola Chiefari, accused of being linked to the Gallace ‘ndrangheta gang. Even for them, accused, in various capacities, of criminal association for extortion and illicit competition with threats, the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method has fallen. The trial will open in January at the Pisa court, since the most serious extortion episode is said to have taken place in Pontedera.