Word: berlusconi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Giovanni Sartori, a Columbia University professor of constitutional law, says the role Berlusconi's personal lawyers have played in his legislative agenda is yet another gargantuan conflict of interest to add to those related to his ownership of Italy's main private television stations. But by now, Sartori says, Berlusconi's lawyers have perfected the art of exploiting Italy's painfully slow justice system: many cases conclude without a final verdict because the statute of limitations has been reached. "It is more a mania than a necessity," Sartori says of Berlusconi's near obsession in battling magistrates. "He feels persecuted...
...Berlusconi's current point man is Nicolo Ghedini, a somber-faced, lanky 49-year-old criminal-defense attorney from the northern city of Padua, who has served in both the Italian Senate and the lower house of Parliament. Ghedini has continued to mount a grinding defense in the criminal cases, arguing in the Mills case that Berlusconi cannot be present in the Milan courtroom for the next several months because of time conflicts with his duties as Prime Minister. Ghedini has also spearheaded an increasingly aggressive legal strategy that has included several libel suits against opposition newspapers. He declared...
Despite these many legal headaches, Berlusconi is embroiled in one other particularly thorny case that even he can't blame on overzealous magistrates. Veronica Lario, Berlusconi's wife of more than 20 years, filed for divorce earlier this year, which sparked an avalanche of accusations that he frequented a prostitute from Bari and an underage model from Naples. The Milan daily Corriere della Sera reported last week that Lario has demanded 3.5 million euros ($5.2 million) in monthly payments, and Berlusconi countered with an offer of 300,000 euros ($450,000). No matter how this and the other cases shake...
Read "In Italy, a Sex Scandal to Rival Berlusconi...
Read a story on how Berlusconi uses women...