Drug dealing and hardcore parties: the 'good life' with donations from Don Francesco Spagnesi's followers.
The 40-year-old priest was placed under house arrest this morning on charges of dealing and importing narcotics by order of the investigating judge Francesca Scarlatti of the Prato Court , at the request of the Prato Public Prosecutor's Office led by prosecutor Giuseppe Nicolosi.
The officers of the Prato Police Headquarters' Flying Squad, led by director Alessandro Gallo, who oversaw the investigation, accompanied Don Francesco —who until early September was the parish priest of the Church of the Annunciation in the Castellina district of Prato and the correctional officer of the Misericordia—to his home to arrest him.
The priest had resigned from his parish duties a few days earlier, likely aware that the investigation would implicate him. The arrest of Alessio Regina , also 40, led to the priest—apparently irreproachable and the author of a book on theological virtues—being arrested at the end of August for importing large quantities of GBL, the so-called "date rape drug," from the Netherlands and currently under house arrest.
Regina – according to investigators – was Don Spagnesi’s accomplice. The Prato Prosecutor’s Office charges the two with the same crimes: they allegedly imported from the Netherlands – over time – quantities of drugs ranging from half a liter to a liter, selling them during hard parties.
According to police, the drugs were paid for with donations from parishioners and were destined for people contacted through sex dating sites . They were sold to approximately 200 clients, many of whom were met at hardcore parties organized online in the province of Florence.
There was an emotional relationship between Alessio Regina and Don Francesco Spagnesi and together they would have organized - according to what was reconstructed by the investigators - some hard parties in a house in Figline Valdarno in the province of Florence at Regina's disposal. It was there that the GBL flowed into the glasses of the participants, together with the cocaine. The 'viaticum' for sexual relations in which at least 2019 people would have participated - from 2021 to 200, according to what was reconstructed by the investigators.
The bishop of Prato, Monsignor Giovanni Nerbini, expressed shock and dismay over the affair, reconstructing the troubled personal journey of Don Francesco who – the prelate claims – had drug addiction problems of which he was aware. The bishop renewed his full and dutiful trust in the judiciary, to which he had already assured active collaboration in the past weeks precisely with the removal of the priest involved in the scandal from the Parish of the Castellina neighborhood. “This is news that a father and Pastor would never want to have – Monsignor Nerbini states – and which affects the entire Diocese. At this time I want to be particularly close to the parish community of Castellina, sharing their suffering and discomfort”. The bishop had long been aware of the priest’s severe physical and psychological suffering, which he had tried to help since his arrival in the Diocese. “However, no one – explains the bishop – could ever have imagined that he had drug addiction problems. For a long time it had remained a personal discomfort”.
In April, when cornered, Don Francesco revealed the cause of his suffering, his stable drug use. It was at that point that the bishop imposed a course of psychotherapeutic rehabilitation with a specialist. “When,” Nerbini continues, “we received news of suspicious movements in the parish accounts, I proceeded to withdraw the parish priest’s exclusive signing power, in order to proceed with a verification of the situation.” Monsignor Nerbini immediately asked Don Spagnesi to account for those banking transactions: “Each time it was explained to me that they were aid for needy people in the parish.” In June, the bishop informed the priest that he would be releasing him from the parish, so that he could dedicate himself completely to treatment; the measure became effective on September 1. Finally, it was the judicial investigations, in recent days, that gave an account of the exact contours of the affair and the disputes regarding drug dealing. “I recommend that everyone pray for the diocesan Church, for the priests, for the community of Castellina and for Don Francesco himself – so that this event may make us all stronger in charity and truth.”
