Naples. A tried and tested system to fix sentences and favor those who were willing to pay in luxury goods (airline tickets, free passes for beach resorts) and money, but also pastiere and wine: the judge Alberto Capuano has ended up in the crosshairs of his colleagues for the umpteenth time. It had already happened a few years ago when his office (then he was a GIP in Naples) and his home were searched by the financial police. On that occasion, in 2014, he was accused and then acquitted of having adopted lenient precautionary measures against the Ragosta entrepreneurs who have numerous business activities (Hotels, resorts) on the Amalfi Coast, in exchange for the renovation of his wife's beauty center. It happened again today when Capuano, a judge who is also very active in forums and conferences - he was supposed to be one of the speakers at an anti-mafia conference scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at the Palace of Justice in Naples - was arrested by agents of the Flying Squad on the orders of the GIP of the Court of Rome. And yet, Capuano - in his role as a judge for preliminary investigations - was one of the worst 'censors' of his corrupt colleagues. In 2012, precisely in the context of an investigation in which the Ragastas were involved, he issued an order against the tax judges of Lamezia Terme, facts that Capuano defined in that act as "the indecent spectacle of a real market of sentences". Now looking at the accusations that his Roman colleague is bringing against him, it seems that it is more or less the same 'indecent spectacle' or even worse.
“There is no matter in which the judge of the Court of Naples Alberto Capuano has refused to enter or corruption in which he has shown, if not moral detachment, at least disinterest: any attempt to approach colleagues and clerks that has been proposed to him – writes the investigating judge of Rome, Costantino De Robbio about Capuano – has found in him a ready and compliant support, whether it was the procedure for demolishing a humble artifact of a blacksmith or the acquittal of individuals accused of being part of organized crime and the release of their assets”. “Capuano – we read in the order – has made his technical expertise completely available to anyone who wanted it, offering to examine trial files to suggest strategies, imposing the appointment of lawyers and contacting the magistrates assigned to the proceedings to convince them to decide not according to justice but for the pursuit of economic ends that are completely incompatible with the role held”.
But Capuano and Di Dio, his main accomplice, the one who procured his 'clients', were not the only ones accustomed to the system of corruption.
“The investigations carried out by the Flying Squad of Rome under the direction of the public prosecutor's office have revealed in a short period of time the extremely vulnerable situation of the Court of Naples, due to the tried and tested system of corruption in operation and of which the defendants Di Dio and Capuano appear to be the main terminals (even if unfortunately not the only ones)” writes the investigating judge De Robbio. “Antonio Di Dio, according to what emerged from the investigation, seems to be dedicated almost daily to establishing relationships with individuals who turn to him with the aim of obtaining a 'connection' to a magistrate of the court or the public prosecutor's office of Naples willing to bend his judicial function to economic interests”. The investigating judge defines the “frequency and variety of corruption agreements found in a few weeks of wiretaps” as “alarming”. Furthermore, it has been found that "it is almost always private individuals who seek Di Dio to provide them with the connection with the magistrates, a sign that the suspect's aptitude for carrying out illicit intermediation for corrupt purposes must be quite well known both in the world of organised crime and at much more petty levels of daily users of justice". Among the most serious charges brought against Capuano is that of having accepted from two intermediaries of Giuseppe Liccardo, a criminal close to the Mallardo Camorra clan of Giugliano, the promise of a large sum of money, around 70 thousand euros, "20 first and 50 after", in exchange for the intervention of one or more members of a criminal panel, designated to decide the criminal trial against Liccardo himself, his brother Luigi and his mother Granata. The three are accused of violating article 12 quinquies DL 306/1992, which concerns the illicit transfer of values, in continuity with the Mallardo mafia clan. The goal: to obtain an acquittal during the final hearing of the trial that should have been held on June 25, then postponed for a few months. In a wiretap contained in the pages of the precautionary custody order, an intermediary can be heard reporting to Liccardo the reassurances of Judge Capuano: “He told me: tell the boys to stay calm (…) the president is their thing, he already knows everything, okay? (…) but he had already spoken with the new panel, the president is only one thing with them. They already know everything. Even if the lawyer told you the statute of limitations, they must be acquitted to you and your entire family, you will be acquitted, period”. In the order, the investigating judge of Rome writes that "Liccardo, having taken note of the news, specified that he did not only want acquittal for himself and all the defendants in his family but also the release of the assets, obtaining in this case also explicit reassurance from Di Dio: 'It is automatic that they will give you back your assets, it is clear that when you are acquitted they will also give you back your assets, it is combined, do you understand?'".
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