Rome construction magnate Angelo
Proietti plea bargained a three-year, three-month prison
sentence Wednesday for draining 11 million euros from two
companies, driving them bankrupt.
Proietti, 61, was placed under house arrest on charges of
aggravated bankruptcy fraud in May, when police also seized
several accounts he held at the Institute for Religious Works
(IOR), the Vatican bank.
Investigators said Proietti drained 11 million euros from
Edil Ars Srl, a building and art renovation contractor for
several Vatican and Italian government bodies and agencies.
These include the Administration of the Patrimony of the
Apostolic See (APSA), the Vatican's LUMSA University and its
Bambino Gesu pediatric hospital, Italy's culture and transport
ministries, and the economy ministry's information technology
firm SOGEI SpA.
Edil Ars accumulated a lot of unpaid tax debt between 2007
and 2012, and was incorporated in May 2013 into another Proietti
company called Emiroma Srl. Both companies ultimately went bust.
Edil Ars is also known for renovating a luxury apartment in
central Rome rented by Marco Milanese, a former MP in Silvio
Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party who was
an aide to former economy minister Giulio Tremonti.
Milanese in turn rented the flat out to Tremonti at far
below-market prices, causing a scandal when news emerged that he
was under investigation for graft and corruption.
Milanese in 2013 was handed an eight-month suspended
sentence for selling his yacht at an above-market price with the
help of Fabrizio Testa, a former board member of civil
air-traffic manager ENAV, in exchange for supporting Testa's bid
to have his post renewed.
In April this year, Milanese was sentenced to two and a
half years for influence-peddling in Venice's MOSE flood-barrier
project.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
