The Court of Cassation has canceled the acquittal sentence with the former mayor of Rende Sandro Principe involved in the investigation into the mafia and politics called “Rende System” and for other politicians. The Ermellini decided that The trial must also be redone for the former mayor of Rende Umberto Bernaudo and the former municipal councilors Pietro Ruffolo and Giuseppe Gagliardi. The four had been acquitted both in the first and in the second degree of judgment by the crimes of external competition in mafia association, exchange vote and, as regards Gagliardi, the crime of corruption is also contested. The Supreme Court therefore accepted the appeal filed by the Prosecutor General of Catanzaro. The latter had considered the motivations of the judges on the acquittals lacking. Now the word belongs to a new appeal court of the Court of Catanzaro. Principe and the other politicians ended up in the “Rende” investigation conducted by the DDA of Catanzaro and entrusted to the then deputy prosecutor of the DDA Pierpaolo Bruni (now chief prosecutor of the prosecutor of Santa Maria Capua Vetere).
According to investigations, politicians and administrators would have entered into a political-mafia pact thanks to which they would have obtained electoral support in exchange for favors such as hiring in some cooperatives of the Municipality. Under the lens of the investigators, several electoral competitions ended. In the investigation, some exponents of the Cosentino gangs also ended who were sentenced at first instance, but then acquitted in the second degree. In fact, on 21 November the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro had totally reversed the first instance sentence by reforming the first instance sentence of the “Rende” system. They had been acquitted because the fact does not exist the bosses Adolfo D’Ambrosio and Michele Di Puppo (who at first instance had been sentenced to four years and 8 months of imprisonment respectively), the former regional councilor Rosario Mirabelli and Marco Paolo Lento (sentenced at first instance both to 2 years in prison). The acquittals of the boss of Cosenza Francesco Patitucci and Umberto di Puppo were then confirmed, condemned in the past for having favored the hiding of the deceased boss Ettore Lanzino. The former Undersecretary of the Principe was arrested in March 2016 when the DDA investigation created a real earthquake in rendezed politics. According to the investigations, a real corruption “system” had rooted through agreements between the exponents of the Cosenza clans and the politicians who administered Rende. The political-mafia intertwining, always according to the accusation, would have perpetrated from 1999 until 2011 seeing the politicians involved in the center that in exchange for favors would have obtained votes so as to be elected in several electoral rounds.