Four seek plea bargains in Capital Mafia

(ANSA) - Rome, December 9 - Four defendants in a Capital Mafia case into corruption in maintenance and construction contracts at Roma people camps have submitted plea bargain requests to prosecutors, sources said Friday.
    Capital Mafia is a sprawling case comprising several different trials into a criminal ring of gangsters, businessmen and politicians that muscled in on lucrative Rome city contracts in trash, migrant reception centers, Roma people camps, and public parks maintenance.
    A total of 17 people are on trial for corruption, bid-rigging and issuing fake invoices in connection with contracts to carry out work on the Romani people camp case between the end of 2013 and the end of 2014. The defendants include a former official at the City Hall Department for Health and Social Policies, Emanuela Salvatori, who has already been convicted and sentenced to four years in prison in a separate Capital Mafia case.
    Also a defendant is businessman Loris Talone, a cabinet member for agriculture in the town of Artena south of Rome.
    Those trying to plea out were named as cooperative administrator Roberto Chierici (who proposed three years five months in prison and the restitution of 75,000 euros), Rome municipal police officer Eliseo De Luca (two years nine months, 50,000 euros), businessman Massimo Colangeli (two years and 40,000 euros), and company manager Giuseppe Sesto (one and a half years).
    The four were charged with corruption, false accounting, and issuing fake invoices for non-existent operations.
    A preliminary hearings judge will have to approve their pleas.