Sorrento: WWF president assaulted and journalist stalked: first conviction

The first-instance sentence has been handed down for Salvatore Langellotto, the Sorrento Peninsula construction entrepreneur previously detained for another crime. The single judge of the Torre Annunziata Court sentenced him to 2 years and 8 months in prison, granting mitigating circumstances equivalent to aggravating ones and recidivism. The decision nearly halves the prosecutor's request, which had requested a 5-year prison sentence.

The crimes charged to Langellotto, for which he was found guilty in this first instance trial, are serious personal injury to Claudio d'Esposito, president of the WWF Terre del Tirreno, and stalking Vincenzo Iurillo, a journalist for Il Fatto Quotidiano.

The attack on d'Esposito dates back to March 26, 2023, in Sant'Agnello. According to the trial's reconstruction, Langellotto violently slapped him in the face, causing him to fall, and then repeatedly attacked him with slaps, punches, and kicks (aimed at his temple, shoulder, and ribs). This brutal beating was linked to the WWF's long-standing complaints against the concrete industry on the coast, of which the entrepreneur is a prominent figure.

The stalking of the reporter and the case of the blessed trucks

The violence of those days later escalated, according to the judges, into a campaign of harassment against the press. Journalist Vincenzo Iurillo, who had reported on the attack on d'Esposito in Il Fatto Quotidiano, was targeted by Langellotto between April 2023 and January 2024.

Repeated threats and harassment forced the reporter to live in a constant state of anxiety and fear for his safety, profoundly altering his lifestyle and impacting his professional activity. Langellotto's focus was not only on the articles about the beating of the WWF president, but also on Iurillo's journalistic investigation into a singular event that occurred in late December 2023: the occupation of the churchyard of the "Santi Prisco ed Agnello" church with five trucks from Langellotto's company, which were later blessed by the parish priest.

Precisely for this latest incident, the Prosecutor's Office has already ordered a new trial for the entrepreneur (for invasion of land and buildings), with the first hearing scheduled for September 15, 2026. In the meantime, Langellotto's defense will be able to appeal today's conviction: in accordance with the constitutional principle of presumption of innocence, the defendant cannot be definitively deemed guilty until a final sentence is reached.