Caserta ex-mayor to serve 3.8 years

(ANSA) - Caserta, August 25 - A former mayor of the Campania city of Caserta was taken to prison Thursday after the supreme Cassation Court upheld a guilty verdict against him for corruption aggravated by links to organized crime, making it binding.
    Giuseppe Gasparin, 56, was sentenced to three years eight months for taking bribes from Angelo Grillo, a hospital cleaning contractor linked to the Belforte di Marcianise clan of the Camorra mafia, while he was a public health manager in Caserta.
    The former mayor has been under house arrest since he was detained in November 2013 along with other public health officials and politicians, including Angelo Polverino, a former regional councilmember from Silvio Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party.
    They were all accused of colluding with the clan by accepting bribes in exchange for hospital cleaning contracts from Grillo.
    The latter has been convicted of a Camorra-related murder, and is doing time under the 41bis prison regime for Italy's most dangerous criminals.