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July 19, 2020 The alleged figurehead remains in prison in the deal for the sale to the regional subsidiary Lombardia Film Commission of a shed in Cormano, in the Milan area, which brought 800 thousand euros out of the foundation's coffers."I uncover the saucepan, which can do him absurd damage." So said Luca Sostegni, the alleged figurehead. Money arrived in part to three accountants close to the League, Michele Scillieri, Alberto Di Rubba and Andrea Manzoni, and in part passed through a network of companies, including the Fidirev trustee on which the prosecutors are investigating, even with a letter rogatory in Switzerland, in an investigation that runs parallel to the Genoese one on the recycling of the famous 49 million euros of the Carroccio.
It was last June 9 when Sostegni, 62 years old and liquidator of companies, according to prosecutors purposely 'spolpate', explained to the phone to Scillieri "how he did not understand the reason why" Di Rubba and Manzoni, the first also ex president of Lombardy Film Commission, "preferred, to save 'little money', to 'uncover the pot'." He would have asked for 50 thousand euros in exchange for the silence, he would have obtained 25 thousand, but in the meantime last Wednesday he was stopped by the Gdf Economic and Financial Police Unit while he was about to escape to Brazil.
Today the investigating judge Giulio Fanales, at the request of the adjunct Eugenio Fusco and the prosecutor Stefano Civardi, validated the arrest and ordered the custody in prison for the 62-year-old on charges of competition in embezzlement and extortion (he is also under investigation for attempted extortion and crimes tax). Sostegni, defended by the lawyers Vincenzo Lepre and Daniela Pulito, already yesterday in San Vittore began to make admissions and to collaborate with the prosecutors who will interrogate him again next week. Investigators who aim to identify other operations set up by Scillieri and the other two professionals, all suspects and former auditors for the League, and what happened to the tranche of money passed to Fidirev (250 thousand euros). In addition there is the suspicion of 'black funds'.
The magistrate's order certifies that the "transaction" that led LFC to buy at inflated prices, between 2017 and 2018, the property had "substantially appropriating nature", with Di Rubba and "his associates" who took possession "of the capital on the foundation's account, tied to the advertising destination". Eight hundred thousand euros, out of a one million euro allocation from the Region, which were paid to Andromeda Real Estate, managed in fact by Scillieri. Company that had previously purchased the same shed for half the price, 400 thousand euros, from Paloschi srl, of which Sostegni was liquidator.
From his role as president at the time of the foundation, Di Rubba would have built a notice for the search for a location on the characteristics of the shed in the belly of the company of his friend Scillieri. And according to the investigating judge, he also lied "deliberately in relation to the current conditions of the property complex". At the end of 2017, the foundation also made an expert report with data "diverging significantly from the cadastral data". And he paid "the full price" with "over nine months in advance of the conclusion of the final sale contract".
Andromeda collected and from there a series of financial movements, reconstructed by the investigating judge, also towards companies directly attributable to the accountants, such as "Studio Dea Consulting srl", which belongs to Di Rubba and of which he is a partner Manzoni and who was also searched in the investigation of the Genoa prosecutors. Finally, there is also a note found in a suitcase of Sostegni with the accounts of what he had and had to have: "25,000 (5,000) - Wednesday 15 Euro 7,000 - remainder 18,000 - starting from September 20 every 20 days approximately" . It was not extortion, he said, because "it was my money."