FLORENCE, ITALY – A Florence court on Wednesday acquitted Italian financier and former construction magnate Salvatore Ligresti and former Florence city councilman Graziano Cioni of corruption charges related to a mega-construction project in the Castello area of the city.
Another defendant, former councilmember Gianni Biagi, was given a one-year suspended sentenced for abuse of authority and auction-rigging and was banned from holding public office for a year. Judge Francesco Maradei also acquitted Fausto Rapisarda, Gualtiero Giombini, Marco Casamonti, Aurelio Fontani, financial-services company Fondiaria-Sai, Europrogetti financial advisors, and Archea Associates architecture firm.
Ligresti was the honorary chairman of Fondiaria Sai, which owned a 168-acre site in the Castello area north of Florence where it planned to build 1.4 million cubic meters of housing and offices and an 80-acre park. Finance police shut the construction site down in November 2008, and the trial began in 2011. “I am very relieved, but also very pissed off because I’ve been marginalized for five years,” Cioni said after the sentence was read. “Justice has triumphed, but my biggest satisfaction is seeing my daughter cry, after years spent being treated as the daughter of a corrupt official”.