Mario Lerario, the former director of the Civil Protection of the Puglia Region,
was sentenced to 5 years and 4 months in prison,
arrested on 23 December 2021 on charges of corruption after pocketing two bribes of 20,000 and 10,000 euros from two entrepreneurs who they also had contracts underway with the Region for the construction of structures for the Covid emergency.
Instead, four years of imprisonment were inflicted on the entrepreneur Luca Leccese, accused of having paid the bribe of 10 thousand euros.
The judge also ordered the termination of the employment relationship with the public administration and confiscation for equivalent.
The sentence of the first instance trial, celebrated with an abbreviated procedure, was issued by the gup of the Court of Bari, Alfredo Ferraro.
According to Lerario, the Bari prosecutor Roberto Rossi, and the deputy Alessio Coccioli, had asked for a six-year prison sentence, contesting the crime of corruption for acts contrary to official duties.
For Leccese the request had been for four years.
The defense of the former manager, entrusted to the lawyer Michele Laforgia, during the proceedings had denied the existence of a corruptive agreement linked to the assignments of the works between Lerario and the entrepreneurs Luca Ciro Giovanni Leccese and Donato Mottola.
The latter is judged with ordinary rite by the Court of Bari: he is accused of having paid the bribe of 20 thousand euros to Lerario.
The exchange of money - according to the defense - would have been attributable, at most, to an undue salary related to the contracts.
For this reason, the request for acquittal had been made, because there would have been no correlation between the exchange of money and the administrative activity carried out by the defendant in the exercise of his function.