He was convicted of embezzlement, but Pietro Greco will not lose his position as mayor of Umbriatico. This is what the Court of Crotone ruled. The judges, on the one hand, inflicted 1 year, 9 months and 10 days in prison on the mayor for having used the municipality’s Fiat Panda for personal purposes. The sentence will be suspended after repairing the damage caused to the organization which has been estimated at 4,500 euros. And on the other hand they rejected the Prosecutor’s request to suspend the accused from his duties as public administrator of the small town.
Greco ended up on trial on charges of having used the organisation’s car and its fuel between January and the summer of 2023, not for institutional but private reasons. Proof of this would have been the satellite tracking of the car’s movements by the investigators, complete with observation and shadowing services. Who would have ascertained the presence of the vehicle in the vicinity of commercial activities, law firms in other municipalities and also in the vicinity of the mayor’s home. The reconstruction provided by Greco’s defenders, the lawyers Domenico and Francesco Sirianni, is different. According to which, however, the mayor would have used the vehicle only for reasons related to the interests of the Municipality. Without forgetting – the lawyers explained at the hearing – that the car was also used by the staff and other municipal administrators. An argument that did not convince the Court which held the mayor responsible for the crime accused him by the prosecutor.