The Court of Appeal of Lecce, declaring its territorial incompetence in favor of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Potenza, annulled the first instance sentence with which the former Tranese investigating judge Michele Nardi had been sentenced by the Salento Court to 16 years and 9 months for criminal association aimed at corruption in judicial acts.
Nardi was accused of having guaranteed favorable procedural outcomes in several legal and tax cases in favor of entrepreneurs involved in the investigations of the Trani prosecutors in exchange for money, jewels and various utilities.
The sentence was also overturned against the other 4 defendants.
The Court of Appeal of Lecce, president Vincenzo Scardia, thus accepted one of the preliminary objections presented at the last hearing by Nardi's lawyer, Domenico Mariani, and challenged by the public prosecution.
Among these was the territorial jurisdiction with which it was asked to move the procedure to Potenza because it was connected - according to the defense - to the functions of Carlo Maria Capristo, the former prosecutor of Trani and Taranto, under investigation in the Lucan capital.
In addition to Nardi, the Court of Lecce, on 18 November 2020, had sentenced the police inspector Vincenzo Di Chiaro to 9 years and 7 months of imprisonment, considered an accomplice of the former Tranese prosecutor Antonio Savasta (sentenced in first instance with an abbreviated rite in a 10-year process-excerpt);
6 years and 4 months had been inflicted on Simona Cuomo from Bari;
5 years and 6 months to Gianluigi Patruno;
4 years and three months to Savino Zagaria, Savasta's brother-in-law.
