Chapter 53 The defence
Six months later
Late spring 2021
Here we go again.
I’m back here, in the courtroom.
It’s my turn. I step up to the stand, in front of the clerk and the typist. To the left, the judges. To the right, the public prosecutor, my lawyer, and the inevitable journalists.
I don’t know who else managed to slip in.
Enzo, my technical consultant, has just commented before the judge on the report he prepared for me, free of charge.
A document worth more than gold today.
He goes through every charge one by one, reconstructs events and dates, produces numbers proving my estraneity to the accusations, highlighting the flaws—if not worse—of the Commissioner.
Where needed, Enzo defends his work, but in several instances he corrects his assumptions, far removed from the real context and unable to realistically evaluate my position.
Assigning identical responsibility to all board members is a summary judgment.
Enzo disputes every count with clear, documented evidence, adding footnotes that strike the prosecution’s witness with surgical precision.
He identifies glaring errors in the calculation of liabilities: amounts owed to the treasury recorded twice, and incorrect priority assignments for certain classes of creditors—corrected only after the report had already been published.
Oversights? More double standards.
The Commissioner’s blunders don’t seem to matter.
Enzo points out to the judges my strictly operational role and defends my professionalism against the accusation of inappropriate compensation, citing, as an example, the award won at the Fenice.
The allegation regarding my compensation—treated as a “diversion”—has always stunned me.
Sitting at the defendants’ bench, short of breath, I explain to the judge that from day one, twenty-five years earlier, I had worked with such commitment that my salary was fully justified.
Learning from the notice of investigation that my compensation was being equated to a diversion was a total and bitter shock.
Not only that: for a very long period, my salary had been added to that of other board members, creating a completely misleading total.
Of my own free will, in order to help the company, I had not hesitated to offer my only home as collateral to unfreeze the seized account—as the Commissioner well knew.
And yet he was now accusing me of having taken resources from the company.
In the courtroom my voice trembles with emotion as I recount the anguish of that moment, and the shame of explaining to my family the serious risk I was exposing them to with a sacrifice that no one now wished to acknowledge.
We go through the charges one by one while I present my defense, from my appointment as CEO to the bankruptcy.
I clarify that I cleaned up the balance sheet from errors and inconsistencies, with the support of expert consultants and the careful revision of every line item, bringing to light the insolvency that led to the accusations against me.
“Your Honor, I called you.
I asked the court to intervene and begin the concordato process. I corrected the financial statements so the errors would emerge.
I did. No one else.”
I declare myself innocent.