Plea bargains accepted over Milan Expo corruption - update 2

(ANSA) - Milan, November 27 - A Milan judge on Thursday accepted plea bargains between the prosecution and six defendants in the case of a big bid-rigging ring related to contracts for Milan Expo 2015. When news of the investigation that led to Thursday's convictions broke in May it caused a huge scandal, with calls from some quarters for Expo, which runs from May to October next year, to be called off.
    Central government beefed up anti-graft measures following the probe and national anti-corruption czar Raffaele Cantone was given new powers to oversee Expo.
    Among the defendants whose plea bargains were accepted was former Expo procurement and planning manager Angelo Paris, who was handed a prison sentence of two years, six months and 20 days and ordered to pay the World Fair 100,000 euros in damages.
    The judge agreed to a settlement for businessman Enrico Maltauro to receive a two year, 10 month sentence.
    The judge also accepted settlements regarding number of former politicians.
    Gianstefano Frigerio, a former figure for the once-dominant but now defunct Christian Democracy party, got three years, four months; Primo Greganti, a ex-member of the Italian Communist Party, got three years; Luigi Grillo, a former Senator for Silvio Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party, got two years, eight months; Sergio Catozzo, a former Ligurian political for the centrist UDC, was handed three years two months. The plea bargains did not regard the case of Antonio Acerbo, the Expo commissioner in charge of the Waterways project who was put under investigation in September for alleged corruption and involvement in bid rigging.
    Prosecutors said Acerbo steered a 100-million-euro contract for the project to a consortium led by Maltauro in exchange for consultancy contracts for his son.