The woman responsible for the ASL bribes in Bari remains in prison.
“It’s not easy to pocket money… you can’t joke with money, you’ll go to jail…”: Connie Sciannimanico said this last June, speaking on the phone with a friend of hers. He was talking to friend about a colleague from the local health authority who had been transferred because he was suspected of having favoured entrepreneurs in exchange for money.
Caught by a paper trail of money
At the time, the health authority official did not know she was being watched nor did she imagine that she would be arrested and that she would have to spend a considerable period of time in prison.
The review court rejected the appeal against the precautionary order notified on 12 November – presented by the lawyer Gaetano Sassanelli – and ordered that Sciannimanico remain in the Taranto prison.
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The lady of bribes and the expertise
The bribes specialist did not admit any of the alleged crimes.She is accused of two counts of corruption with entrepreneurs Giovanni Crisanti, Ignazio Gadaleta and Nicola Murgolo. In exchange for help in making their irregular practices go ahead, it is assumed, the official would have received money and gifts. But so far the woman has not wanted to talk to the Italian magistrates about this.
Bribes paid in installments based on work progress
And she didn’t even try to explain how with her salary as an official she had managed to buy 17 bags (including Vuitton, Prada and Gucci) with an average value of 3 thousand euros and had about 22 thousand euros in cash.
The area manager Nicola Sansolini (placed under house arrest) and the entrepreneur Giovanni Crisanti have already confessed, while the third arrested public official, Nicola Iacobellis, is about to be interrogated. During the interrogation of Crisanti he reported that he had paid bribes because that was the way “system” worked in the health company.
“There are three foxes there,” she said to a friend, speaking of the ASL’s technical offices, “but this one made it dirty.” He was referring to a colleague who had recently made a suspicious investment: A technical assistant like me, single income because his wife doesn’t work… a person with a normal salary, bought the house in Poggiofranco, he must have paid 5 -6 thousand euros per square meter.
He then went on to add “It would seem that they move him, but he made it really dirty.” The episode therefore gave Connie the opportunity to focus on the problem of bribes: «It’s not easy with money… Even for the movement you have to make, you can be intercepted, filmed and framed. And the friend replied: But go to Pane e pomodoro, go to San Giorgio. “With money you go to jail,” added Sciannimanico. Without knowing that the Financial Police was listening to her and that, on more than one occasion, they filmed her while she took what the entrepreneurs left in her bag or jacket.