Sant'Agata dei Goti former mayor Carmine Valentino arrested for extortion

Sant'Agata dei Goti former mayor Carmine Valentino arrested for extortion
The provincial secretary of the PD is under house arrest.

The investigation is related to events from 2017, when he was mayor, centered on the assignment of the waste service. This morning the execution of the order. Valentino is defended by the lawyer Marcello D'Auria.

The Benevento Flying Squad has executed a precautionary custody order under house arrest, issued by the investigating judge of Benevento at the request of the Sannio Prosecutor's Office, against the former mayor of Sant'Agata dei Goti Carmine Valentino, currently a municipal councilor, seriously suspected of extortion, disturbed freedom of auctions and disclosure and use of official secrets.

According to investigators, Valentino, who was the mayor of Sant'Agata de' Goti at the time of the events, as part of a procedure aimed at awarding a concession for support activities for the ordinary management and collection of tax revenues and the forced collection of municipal taxes, allegedly attempted to force one of the members of the judging commission to assign a higher score, and in any case one that would guarantee the highest overall score, to the technical offer of one of the participating companies, a company to which the mayor was indirectly connected.

In particular, a few days before the first session of the judging commission, Valentino allegedly approached the commissioner and handed him three sheets of paper on which were indicated the characteristics of the company that was to win the procedure, directly and peremptorily ordering him to assign the highest score for the technical offer to the aforementioned participating company, pointing out that the economic offer was the least advantageous.

The commissioner, who also held the position of municipal secretary, refused, resigning as a member of the judging commission and thus causing the cancellation of the procedure, formally citing procedural defects.

The investigating judge of Benevento, in sharing part of the provisional charges, considered that the precautionary needs for the repetition of the crimes indicated above were still current, considering that the suspect, following the events committed between 2017 and 2018, and despite the impossibility of running again as mayor, would have also concretely directed the administrative organization of the institution in 2019 and 2020, attempting to guide the most important choices and to manage possible and future public contracts of large amounts.