Ex-Confindustria VP gets two years for tax fraud

(ANSA) - Milan, October 19 - Bracco Group health care multinational president and CEO Diana Bracco was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for embezzlement and tax fraud of over a million euros. Bracco has served as vice president of Confindustria employers' association and is the former president of Expo 2015 SpA. The charges pertain to her position as Bracco chairman of the board. The sentence was suspended. Bracco was also banned from holding public office for a year and six months.
    The prosecution case was that Bracco claimed business tax breaks by conveying invoices for personal expenses such as maintenance on her boat and her homes in celebrity resorts onto company books.
    The court also sentenced architects Marco Isidoro Pollastri and Simona Adele Calcinaghi to a suspended sentence of one year six months in prison for issuing invoices worth over three million euros for renovations on five Bracco properties, but with fake payment descriptions.
    This allowed Bracco SpA, Bracco Imaging SpA, Bracco Real Estate Srl, Spin SpA and Ceber Srl to cheat public coffers out of 1.042 million euros' worth of VAT and IRES corporate tax in 2008-2013, the prosecution said.
    Bracco Real Estate chairman of the board Pietro Mascherpa has already pled out, agreeing to pay a 45,000-euro fine.