Brunetta's wife is mudslinger Beatrice Di Maio

(ANSA) - Rome, November 24 - The wife of a prominent center-right politician has admitted she is behind a Twitter account with 14,000 followers that specialized in mud-slinging at the government in the run-up to a December 4 constitutional reform referendum, center-right newspaper Libero reported Thursday.
    Tommasa Giovannoni Ottaviani, more commonly known as Titti Brunetta, revealed to the paper in an interview out today that she used the alias of Beatrice Di Maio, an ardent - albeit non-existent - supporter of the populist, euroskeptic 5-Star Movement (M5S) to launch vitriol-laced tweets targeting government officials and President Sergio Mattarella.
    The tweets even drove Lorenzo Lotti, the cabinet secretary with the media portfolio, to sue their author for defamation after they insinuated he is a member of the Mafia. "But my husband has nothing to do with this," said the 50-something interior decorator, who married then-minister Renato Brunetta in 2011.
    "He never knew anything about what I was doing".
    Brunetta currently serves as Lower House whip for ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia (FI) party.