Sexual abuse of three employees, entrepreneur acquitted after 8 years of trials: "Horrible accusations, family life destroyed"

The case and the judicial process

Pavia – An entrepreneur from Bubbiano, a town in the province of Milan, accused of sexual violence against three employees, has been acquitted, because the fact did not exist, by the Milan Court of Appeal. The sentence comes at the end of the Appeal bis trial and more than eight years after the first complaint, in January 2016, filed by one of the injured parties: "My client received the news of the acquittal with a liberating cry," comments the defendant's lawyer, Antonio Francesco Catanzariti.

The entrepreneur on trial, F.T., sixty-six years old, had been sentenced in 2020 to ten years of imprisonment in the first instance by the Court of Pavia, then in 2021 in the first Appeal trial the conviction had been confirmed but the sentence reduced to seven years and six months. The Court of Cassation in June 2022 had instead annulled the sentence with remand, thus ordering a second Appeal trial which concluded last Friday with a total overturning of the previous decisions.

The role of telephone records

At the center of the remand decided by the Cassation, was the failure to admit the expert report on telephone records. The defense of the accused, which also made use of a party consultancy, in its final discussion emphasized:

• Discrepancies between some data from the records and the statements provided by the injured parties.
• Contradictory points that make the story provided not credible.

"We await the reasons for the sentence to eventually evaluate the next actions to be taken – the lawyer anticipates –. My client suffered the loss of dignity, he spent difficult years. Being accused of such a horrible crime without having committed it makes one feel very bad, for a period even his family serenity was destroyed."

The reactions of the civil parties

According to the accusations initially made against the entrepreneur, the employees allegedly suffered groping and harassing behavior, one of them had reported being forced into a relationship: "My clients learned of the acquittal sentence with great bitterness – states lawyer Francesca Santini who assisted two of the three women, all of whom were civil parties in the trial -. They have always confirmed their version of the facts in all venues. We await the reasons for the decision to understand the situation, after which I will discuss with them any next steps."

From a technical point of view, now the Prosecutor's Office could appeal to the Cassation or the decision will become final.