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Getbig Female Info Boards => Open Talk for Girl Discussion => Topic started by: BayGBM on May 03, 2009, 11:57:43 AM
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Berlusconi’s Wife Says She Wants a Divorce
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — Less than a week after writing an open letter criticizing her husband for cavorting with much younger women, the wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said she wants to file for divorce.
“I’d like to close the curtain on our married life,” Veronica Lario, 52, Mr. Berlusconi’s wife, told the center-left daily La Repubblica on Sunday. “I was forced to take this step,” she told the Turin daily La Stampa. “I don’t want to add anything else.”
An assistant to Ms. Lario, Paola Giponi, on Sunday confirmed the press reports, while Mr. Berlusconi released a brief statement to the ANSA news agency. “It’s a personal matter, and one that saddens me,” the prime minister said. “It’s a private issue that’s best not discussed.”
If Ms. Lario does file for divorce, it is unclear whether Mr. Berlusconi, 72, would be affected politically. Despite colorful gaffes that would sink a politician elsewhere, Mr. Berlusconi enjoys more power and popularity than ever before, thanks to the disarray of his left-wing opposition and his brilliant reading of Italian sensibilities.
In fact, part of Mr. Berlusconi’s success lies in his ability to present himself at once as a devoted family man and a consummate ladies’ man — a contradiction embodied in his marriage to Ms. Lario.
The two met in Milan in 1980, when she was an actress appearing nude in a play called “The Magnificent Cuckold,” and he a married, up-and-coming real estate tycoon. Mr. Berlusconi left his first wife for Ms. Lario. They had three children before marrying in a civil ceremony in 1990.
The news of the impending break-up came after days of soap-opera drama. On Tuesday, Ms. Lario wrote an open letter to the ANSA news agency complaining about her husband’s roving eye — her second such public declaration in recent years.
Ms. Lario criticized reports that Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition planned to nominate a slate of attractive young women for the European Parliament, including the star of a reality television show.
Choosing candidates seemingly on the basis of their headshots more than their political experience was “shamelessly trashy,” Ms. Lario said.
Ms. Lario was also angered by press reports that Mr. Berlusconi had attended the 18th birthday party in Naples of Noemi Letizia, who has said in several recent interviews that she called the prime minister “daddy” and that he had given her a gold and diamond necklace.
“That surprised me,” Ms. Lario told ANSA. “Because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his own children, even if he was invited.”
Mr. Berlusconi countered that his wife has been subject to the “manipulations” of the left-wing press. “I’m afraid that the ‘signora’ believed what she read in the newspapers,” ANSA quoted him as saying last Wednesday.
In the ensuing days, Italian newspaper Web sites have carried pictures of Ms. Letizia posing in her underwear, and national conversation has been dominated by speculation about the nature of the relationship between the prime minister and the young woman.
On Sunday, La Repubblica said that Ms. Lario had been contemplating divorce for years. In hiring a lawyer and opening proceedings, “I would like to avoid conflict,” La Repubblica quoted her as saying.
Yet any divorce would inevitably cause inheritance battles between Mr. Berlusconi’s two children from his first marriage and the three from his second with Ms. Lario over control of his vast real estate and media empire, valued in the billions.
Mr. Berlusconi and Ms. Lario are rarely seen in public together and there has been palace intrigue for years.
In 2007, Ms. Lario published a letter on the front page of La Repubblica demanding an apology from Mr. Berlusconi after news reports quoted him praising the beauty of a showgirl whom he later named equal opportunities minister, saying: “If I weren’t already married, I would marry you right now.”
“These are statements I consider damaging to my dignity,” Ms. Lario said at the time.
The same day, Mr. Berlusconi, who was running for a third term as prime minister, quickly issued a public apology, which political analysts speculated was aimed at winning over women voters.
“Your dignity should not be an issue: I will guard it like a precious material in my heart even when thoughtless jokes come out of my mouth,” Mr. Berlusconi said then. “Forgive me, however, I beg of you, and take this public testimony of private pride that submits to your anger as an act of love. One among many. A huge kiss. Silvio.”
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She's a hottie, but what did she expect? He left his first wife for her, so game should recognize game.
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She's a hottie, but what did she expect? He left his first wife for her, so game should recognize game.
Amen.
"You cheat WITH me, you'll cheat ON me."
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Amen.
"You cheat WITH me, you'll cheat ON me."
Woemn don't realize that is one of the 10 Commandments of Cheating. Right below, "A cheater will always cheater, whether in life, or on his wife"
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Woemn don't realize that is one of the 10 Commandments of Cheating. Right below, "A cheater will always cheater, whether in life, or on his wife"
Don't kid yourself. Women do realize that, ...sometimes they even count on it.
One thing is for sure.... she's got him by the short & curlys. If she goes for it... he's in a lot of hot water.
A rich client who often runs afoul of the law is a lawyer's wet dream.
A billionaire philanderer who can't keep it zipped, can be orgasmic for the wife who doesn't want him anymore.
Lord knows she's suffered greatly. Keep it zipped or be prepared for the consequences.
For him, the consequences include, but are certainly not limited to financial ones.
She strikes me as one very sharp lady not to be trifled with, who no doubt is well acquainted with his achilles heel.
I thought the Pulitzer divorce was scandalous, ...this one has the potential to top it. That man is in serious trouble!
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yawn
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yawn
You obviously are not acquainted with the exploits of Silvio Berlusconi. :D
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i just don't care about other peoples lives
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i just don't care about other peoples lives
You cared enough to click on this thread after having seen the title.
You cared enough to read the posts.
You cared enough to post a reply.
Given the range of other things you could be doing with your spare time that's a lot of caring. :D
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You cared enough to click on this thread after having seen the title.
You cared enough to read the posts.
You cared enough to post a reply.
Given the range of other things you could be doing with your spare time that's a lot of caring. :D
actually it's mostly out of boredom.
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She's a hottie, but what did she expect? He left his first wife for her, so game should recognize game.
I don't think she would expect a 72 yr old man to be frollicking with minors. I'm sure she closed her eyes to alot, but when he starts palling around with little girls younger than his own kids, ...it kind of gives you pause no? :-\
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I don't think she would expect a 72 yr old man to be frollicking with minors. I'm sure she closed her eyes to alot, but when he starts palling around with little girls younger than his own kids, ...it kind of gives you pause no? :-\
Yes. He's pretty creepy at this point. 72 years old and not one grey hair. He has had multiple plastic surgeries to look younger. Just imagine the stuff he does that we don't know about it. It's sad really. ::)
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More Than One Way to Skin a Cad
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
One reason so many Italians — and quite possibly at least one American ex-president — love Silvio Berlusconi lies in his response to his wife, Veronica Lario, after she complained publicly about his womanizing and demanded a divorce. “Veronica will have to publicly apologize to me,” Mr. Berlusconi, the 72-year-old Italian prime minister, said grandly. “And I don’t know if that will be enough.”
Politics Italian-style looked particularly comical and benign this past week as Americans relived John Edwards’s marital betrayal on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in all its sad, sordid detail. Elizabeth Edwards, who has written a book, “Resilience,” about her personal trials, told all to Ms. Winfrey while her penitent husband slunk to another part of their North Carolina mansion, waiting his turn to answer to Ms. Winfrey — an Ethan Frome of his former self.
It’s tempting to see these two political scandals as a contrast of corrupt Europe and puritanical America — an aging, wily Italian statesman using sex, and sexism, to boost his image, while a young American politician wrecks his career — and unforgivably wounds his admirable wife — for a brief, forbidden dalliance.
But that only works under the sexist assumption that it is the men who matter. Mrs. Edwards’s star turn on “Oprah” doesn’t quite fit the template of naïve New World idealism; it looked more like an exquisite form of revenge, the kind of well-oiled comeuppance that the Marquise de Merteuil concocted in “Dangerous Liaisons.”
Mrs. Edwards, who spoke bravely about her cancer and her husband’s deceit, explained that she didn’t want his misstep to define her or their 30-year marriage; she made sure, however, that he will never live it down.
Ms. Lario, 52, thought she could exact revenge by shaming her skirt-chasing fool of a husband. Instead, the skirt-chaser made a fool of her. (His is a Mediterranean version of Richard Pryor’s famous riposte: “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”)
Like many an American innocent abroad, Ms. Lario should have known better. She is not without experience: she, too, was once a comely young starlet cavorting with an adulterer. The couple met in 1980 when he was a married real estate tycoon and she was on stage in “The Magnificent Cuckold.” Not that Ms. Lario doesn’t have a point — Mr. Berlusconi does flirt with younger women, he does bestow political patronage to beauty pageant contestants and starlets, and he did travel to Naples to attend a birthday celebration for an 18-year-old aspiring model, whom he described as the daughter of a friend. (“This surprised me,” Ms. Lario said in a news release. “Because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his children, even if he was invited.” )
But it’s the second time Ms. Lario has publicly upbraided her husband; she wrote her first open letter in 2007 demanding that he apologize publicly to her for offending her “dignity.” Mr. Berlusconi complied with great flourish. But that kind of brinkmanship only works once.
There is no opera buffa to Mrs. Edwards’s pain and anger at a husband who betrayed her twice — first by having an affair with Rielle Hunter and then by assuring her it was only a one-night stand until The National Enquirer proved him a liar a year and a half later. Mrs. Edwards said her cancer played a role in helping her through a second wave of rage. “Being sick meant a number of things to me,” she told Ms. Winfrey. “One is that my life is going to be less long and I didn’t want to spend it fighting.”
For those who feel that Mr. Edwards has not been punished enough, there is consolation in the inevitable “Oprah” aftershocks. The Enquirer, which broke the scandal and also printed rumors that Mr. Edwards is the father of Ms. Hunter’s baby, is now reporting that Ms. Hunter was so offended by Mrs. Edwards’s dismissive words about her and her child that she is demanding that her ex-lover submit to a paternity test.
The Edwards interview could be an “aha” moment for other sinners. It is almost impossible to predict how and when a scorned one will respond. (Except in the case of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston: it’s a shame that Bristol’s post-partum championing of teenage abstinence doesn’t extend to television appearances: Bristol, the Alaska governor’s daughter, and her ex-boyfriend Levi have been exchanging unprotected television appearances all week.)
Mrs. Edwards’s disclosures underscore the curious silence of Silda Wall Spitzer, who stood by Eliot Spitzer’s side when he admitted to hiring call girls, and stayed there after he resigned his post as governor of New York. Mr. Spitzer spent a few months in isolation, and is now back on the circuit, writing articles and giving interviews about the credit crisis and corporate greed.
Ms. Wall Spitzer has not broken her public silence, but she is apparently still speaking to her husband: the couple were seen not many days ago having a cozy, chatty dinner with friends at Café Boulud in Manhattan.
Mr. Spitzer would be wise not to let down his guard completely, however. As America saw last week, revenge is a dish best served in public.
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Prime Minister’s Escapades Finally Raise Eyebrows
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — When the wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took to the front pages this month to announce that she wanted a divorce and accused him of dallying with very young women, it seemed like yet another storm that Italy’s most powerful man would easily weather. For years, Italy has winked at Mr. Berlusconi, where other nations might have glared.
But then things took a turn for the surreal.
First came a rare and inescapable torrent of speculation — in blogs, on television and radio, at dinner tables across Italy — about the nature and origins of his relationship with Noemi Letizia, a pretty blond aspiring model whose 18th birthday party he attended in Naples last month, and who has said she calls him Daddy. This was the party that caused Mr. Berlusconi’s wife to declare their marriage, one year older than Ms. Letizia, over.
More recent are allegations, potentially more damaging, that Mr. Berlusconi, 72, invited Ms. Letizia and about 40 other girls, some like her at the time younger than 18, to spend New Year’s Eve at one of his villas in Sardinia.
Much of Mr. Berlusconi’s success has stemmed from his uncanny ability to read the national mood. Now many wonder if he has finally miscalculated it and is pushing tolerant Italians too far, and whether his late-career reputation may increasingly resemble the Roman imperial decadence of Fellini’s “Satyricon.”
The prime minister has repeatedly denied anything untoward in his rapport with Ms. Letizia, who has posed in her underwear and said in a recent interview that she was a virgin. On Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi said he had “absolutely not” had “a relationship, let’s say steamy or more than steamy, with an under-age girl.”
The age of consent in Italy is 16, but people are considered minors until 18.
“I have sworn it on the life of my children,” he added. “If this were perjury, I would have to resign a minute later.”
The story is taking on political dimensions less than two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, and a month before Italy is scheduled to host the Group of 8 meeting of world leaders, and when Mr. Berlusconi is trying to secure his standing with the Obama administration.
Dario Franceschini, the leader of the center-left opposition, has been asking voters this question about Mr. Berlusconi: “Would you have your children raised by this man?”
Critics say the debate is not just about sex, but reflects an inattention to Italy’s deep problems, like the economy, or reconstruction after the earthquake that left 70,000 people homeless in central Italy. The leader of another opposition party recently compared him to Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. The Financial Times editorialized this week that Mr. Berlusconi was “a malign example to all.”
And yet, Mr. Berlusconi still governs virtually unopposed. “The problem is simply that the Italians can’t imagine who could replace Berlusconi at the moment,” said Tim Parks, a novelist and commentator on Italy. “It’s too dangerous and too much effort to replace him. So it hardly matters how bad the scandal is.”
Or, as the right-wing politician Francesco Storace said in a recent radio interview, “People don’t vote for Berlusconi because he tells the truth; they vote for him because they like him.”
In what many see as a sign of Mr. Berlusconi’s grip on the levers of power in Italy and the Vatican, the Italian Bishops Conference this week essentially gave him a pass, or at least a no comment, calling for “adult behavior,” but saying that each person’s conduct was a matter “of individual conscience.”
“Things are completely turned upside down,” said Gianluca Nicoletti, a commentator for Il Sole 24 Ore radio. “Those who always represented the family and faithful couples are happy to justify hanky-panky,” he said. While some on the left, “which always professed a belief in total sexual freedom, are now like inquisitors with their fingers wagging.”
What has come to be called simply “the Noemi case” presents new elements in Italy’s long relationship with Mr. Berlusconi’s questionable behavior. For the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician’s personal life.
That campaign is being led by Mr. Berlusconi’s archenemy in the press, the left-wing daily La Repubblica. For the past two weeks it has published 10 questions for the prime minister, chief among them how he met Ms. Letizia’s father. Mr. Berlusconi has said he recently met Ms. Letizia through her father, Benedetto Letizia, a functionary for the city of Naples.
In recent weeks, Ms. Letizia’s father and mother have largely stood by Mr. Berlusconi’s accounts of how he met Ms. Letizia, while her former boyfriend and her aunt have contradicted them, creating a confusion that has prolonged the drama.
In an interview published by La Repubblica on Sunday, Ms. Letizia’s former boyfriend, who later turned out to have a criminal record, said that the prime minister first called Ms. Letizia last fall after seeing her picture in a modeling catalog.
He described Ms. Letizia’s relationship with Mr. Berlusconi as chaste and mentorlike. It was he who first said that she and a high school friend had been invited to spend New Year’s Eve at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa in Sardinia.
The newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Mr. Berlusconi had told associates that Ms. Letizia had been at the party along with many other guests.
Mr. Berlusconi’s many supporters believe he is being unjustly attacked in election season and should be left alone.
Giuliano Ferrara, a sometime adviser to Mr. Berlusconi, has urged La Repubblica to stop the inquisition, saying that “the only thing at stake” in the matter was “Berlusconi’s ego.”
Yet if Mr. Berlusconi and his wife, Veronica Lario, divorce, an inheritance battle is looming between his two children from his first marriage and three from his second to Ms. Lario, all of whom have defended their father.
The “Noemi case” has both deepened and distracted from other lingering black spots on the Berlusconi government. Last week, a Milan court issued its reasoning for convicting a British lawyer, David Mills, of accepting a $600,000 bribe from associates of Mr. Berlusconi.
Mr. Berlusconi was not on trial, having passed a law granting Italy’s top politicians immunity from prosecution while in office. He has repeatedly accused prosecutors of being left-wing ideologues out to get him.
Meanwhile, Ms. Letizia recently posed with a man identified as her new boyfriend for Chi, a magazine published by Mondadori, which is owned by Mr. Berlusconi. She discussed her personal life: “I haven’t yet taken that big step. Virginity is an important value. I believe strongly in God and am a practicing Catholic.”
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Seriously Bay, ...what's with this obsession you seem to have with the marital discords of the rich & famous?
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'I cannot be his babysitter,' says Berlusconi's wife
By Ariel David, The Associated Press
ROME - The estranged wife of Premier Silvio Berlusconi says in a book published Wednesday that it was her husband's alleged lies that pushed her to file for divorce at the outset of the sex scandal involving the Italian conservative leader.
In the book, Veronica Lario recalls how in April she made the decision after her husband failed to mention he would attend the birthday party of an 18-year-old model in Naples, telling her only about his official business in the southern city.
The premier's attendance at Noemi Letizia's party was later reported in the media and sparked a series of allegations over Berlusconi's purported fondness for young women.
Berlusconi, 72, has denied having any improper relationship with Letizia or any other women.
"Tendenza Veronica," (Veronica's Trend), is a revised edition of a book first published in 2004 by journalist Maria Latella. In the new edition, she quotes Lario as saying that the Naples incident was only the latest problem in her relationship with her husband.
"It was the latest lie. Better then to try to seek a last way to respect myself, better to divorce," the 53-year-old Lario said. "He put me in this situation."
Lario, a former actress with whom Berlusconi has three children, said her husband's actions were embarrassing him at a global level.
"I cannot be his baby sitter and I cannot stop him any more from making himself ridiculous in front of the world," she said. "I'm done."
Lario's lawyer was not available for comment.
Latella told AP Television News that the Naples party was "the turning point" for Lario.
"I asked her what about Noemi: 'Maybe she is your husband's daughter,"' Latella recalled. "Veronica's answer was: 'If she really were Silvio's daughter, I would open the door of my home, but I know she is not."'
The public denunciation of Berlusconi that ensued wasn't the first time the usually private Lario openly complained about her husband's reported flirtations.
Two years ago, she received a quick and public apology from Berlusconi when she wrote an open letter to La Repubblica - a left-leaning paper fiercely critical of Berlusconi - complaining about her husband telling TV starlet Mara Carfagna: "If I weren't married, I would marry you immediately."
Carfagna is now Berlusconi's minister for equal opportunity.
"I often wondered in these two years how long it would take for Silvio to forget his promise not to embarrass me and his family any more," Lario is quoted as saying in the book. "I didn't expect he would forget so fast."
Lario set off a political storm when she announced her decision to divorce. Since then, local and international media have competed for every tawdry detail of new allegations linking the premier to models and even a prostitute.
Berlusconi has denied ever paying a woman for sex, and has dismissed all the allegations as lies fabricated by the opposition and left-leaning media.
Although the scandal has been heavily played in the media for weeks, Berlusconi has so far kept his popularity in Italy largely intact. The centre-right coalition, which won elections in the spring of 2008, has remained stable.
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Seriously Bay, ...what's with this obsession you seem to have with the marital discords of the rich & famous?
Old as this post is, I believe the idea behind it is fair to reiterate.
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actually it's mostly out of boredom.
x2. I wouldn't give these people a second look if I passed them by on the streets.
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Wiretaps of Berlusconi’s Teenage Friend Emerge
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — A tabloid tidal wave washed over Italy on Tuesday as newspapers published eye-popping wiretapped conversations from a nightclub dancer who said she had dallied with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a minor, but whether it would sweep the wily prime minister out to sea was still anyone’s guess.
The wiretaps emerged days after prosecutors opened an investigation into Mr. Berlusconi on charges he compensated Moroccan-born Karima el-Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby Rubacuori,” or “Ruby Heart-Stealer,” for sex at his villa outside Milan when she was a minor. In wiretaps, Ms. Mahroug said she had been attending parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa since she was 16.
Mr. Berlusconi, 74, who denies all wrongdoing and says he did not know Ms. Mahroug was a minor, is also accused of helping spring her from police custody when she was detained for theft last spring. Now 18, she said she had asked Mr. Berlusconi for 5 million euros ($6.7 million) to keep quiet, according to wiretaps published Tuesday in the Italian press.
But Ms. Mahroug is apparently only a face in the crowd. Prosecutors said this week that “a significant number” of young women had prostituted themselves to the prime minister, obtaining cash or rent-free housing in exchange for sex. In Italy, where a facade of Roman Catholic morality masks a high tolerance for illicit romance, Mr. Berlusconi has weathered scandals for years. But this time, with the prime minister facing possible criminal charges and with wiretaps presenting a picture of a sordid world of orgies and of blackmail by call girls, things are beginning to look different.
Above all, Italians are increasingly alarmed by the divide between the country’s ills and the prime minister’s priorities.
“It’s not important what he does privately, but what he doesn’t do as a head of government,” said Simone Calvarese, 41, a bus driver in downtown Rome, who said he had voted for Mr. Berlusconi in the past but like many Italians had lost patience.
On Tuesday, the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, expressed “grave concern” over the scandal and called on Mr. Berlusconi to clarify things, while the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Avvenire, published a rare front-page editorial that decried a crude culture of “power, sex and money,” implicitly criticizing Mr. Berlusconi’s behavior, and called prostitution “morally indefensible.”
Last week, Italy’s highest court removed the prime minister’s automatic immunity from prosecution, and he is holding onto his parliamentary majority by a thread.
But it remains to be seen if the government will collapse. On Tuesday, the opposition stepped up calls for Mr. Berlusconi to resign, but he can fall only if he loses his parliamentary majority, and for now his party loyalists are sticking with him.
“With Berlusconi, the rules from any other place or government don’t apply,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor of the Turin daily La Stampa. “It’s hard to know if this will really be the last scandal that makes Berlusconi fall, because for him to fall, someone has to bring him down.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Berlusconi said he would not resign. He said he was less the target of a judicial investigation than of “subversive” media attacks.
Indeed, splashed across the press, the wiretapped conversations have gripped Italy. Culled from a range of women, lawyers and associates, the wiretaps show the intersection of politics and the kind of reality-television culture that Mr. Berlusconi has helped create in his decades as Italy’s largest private broadcaster.
In one wiretapped conversation published Tuesday in La Repubblica, Ms. Mahroug said the prime minister had offered to pay her to keep quiet about her detention for theft. “He called me, telling me, ‘Ruby, I’ll give you as much money as you want, I’ll pay you, I’ll cover you in gold, but the important thing is that you hide everything; don’t tell anyone anything.’ ”
The scandal has a cast of characters that would fill an entire soap opera season. Also under investigation are Emilio Fede, 79, one of Mr. Berlusconi’s oldest friends and the director of a news program owned by his company, Mediaset; and Lele Mora, 55, an agent for television personalities. The authorities are also investigating Nicole Minetti, 25, a former dental hygienist and now a politician for Mr. Berlusconi’s party in Lombardy, who is accused of helping manage the young women in Mr. Berlusconi’s orbit, including intervening with the local police when Ms. Mahroug was questioned about a theft last May.
Prosecutors say the three helped procure attractive young women for parties at Mr. Berlusconi’s villas, many of whom had appeared on the reality television shows that have been a staple on Mr. Berlusconi’s television channels for years.
A parliamentary committee is expected to begin discussion Wednesday on a request by prosecutors to search some of Mr. Berlusconi’s properties, including offices near Milan that they say could contain documents indicating that some women were given rent-free apartments in a complex owned by Mr. Berlusconi in exchange for sex.
The wiretaps published Tuesday seriously damage the superman image that Mr. Berlusconi helped cultivate.
In a conversation published in Corriere della Sera, one young woman named by prosecutors in the prostitution inquiry complained about the prime minister’s looks, saying: “He’s more dead than alive. He’s even become ugly. He should just give up. I hope he’s more generous.”
In another transcript published in Corriere della Sera, Ms. Mahroug compared herself with Noemi Letizia, a woman whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi attended in the spring of 2009, weeks before his wife filed for divorce, who said she called him “Daddy.” “I call him Daddy, too, but she was his little darling.”
Other wiretapped conversations told of parties in which Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Fede and Mr. Mora would spend evenings with dozens of women, who would strip down to their underwear while the men watched.
In a televised address on Sunday, a tense-looking Mr. Berlusconi, his face plastered with pancake makeup, attacked the magistrates investigating him, defended his right to privacy and denied that he had ever paid for sex.
For the first time since his wife filed for divorce, Mr. Berlusconi also said he had a steady girlfriend — prompting a wave of speculation over her identity. Italian bookmakers put the best odds on her being a member of Parliament, but a former Miss Piedmont also appeared to be a contender.
Sitting against a backdrop of family photos and a small statuette of a bucking horse, Mr. Berlusconi added that his parties were all conducted with “the most absolute elegance, decorum and calm.”
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I am all for getting your groove on but a man in his late 60s and early 70s having sex with a teenager? Nevermind that he was married; does this guy have no shame? No limits? I am as much of a nympho as the next guy . . . but that is disgusting!
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No but yes but, you see? I adore this, being a Brit.
We've had bankers bankrupting the economy, and our MP's stealing and wanking with their expenses. Dire. That's Britain.
But in Italy they've got Berly to look up to. He's in power. His antics are comparable to none. It's riotous and humourous, it's total utter madness.
We only get the interpretations here: sounds like: "I never had sex with that woman. ""Yawn as Migs says.
We've all heard that before. It's totally prepostorous. It's milledonna tutti something or other.
You couldn't make it up.
They can't get him on the things that matter about his corruptness, ie: owning all the broadcast mediums and paying off all the 'politicians' and mafia.
Instead they're trying to take him down (which they will) for bonking whores.
xL
most if not all politicians are corrupt and lie
What else is new?
At least he's funny
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Prosecutors Seek Immediate Trial in Berlusconi Sex Case
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — A defiant Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday that he would continue to govern Italy even as Milan prosecutors filed a request to try him on criminal charges related to prostitution and abuse of office.
Prosecutor Edmondo Bruti Liberati announced Wednesday that his office had enough evidence to ask a judge to waive preliminary hearings and call for an immediate trial of Mr. Berlusconi on charges that he paid for sex with a 17 year old and abused his office by calling the police to intervene on her behalf after she was detained for petty theft in May.
Mr. Berlusconi has denied wrongdoing. At a news conference on Wednesday to present an economic plan to revive Italy’s stagnant growth, he accused prosecutors of having “subversive aims” and vowed to fight the charges.
“I’m sorry that these things have offended the dignity of our country, have slung mud on our country and on our government and on me personally, internationally,” Mr. Berlusconi said, referring to the prosecutors.
They assert that Mr. Berlusconi paid for sex with Karima el-Mahroug, a Moroccan-born nightclub dancer nicknamed Ruby Heart-Stealer, before she turned 18, and that he called police to help release her from custody after she was detained for theft in Milan in May.
On Wednesday, Mr. Berlusconi said he had called police to intervene on Ms. Mahroug’s behalf because he had been told that she was the niece of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. “I intervened as prime minister because I was concerned that there might be an international diplomatic incident,” Mr. Berlusconi said, adding that he “always” helped “people in difficulty.”
Ms. Mahroug has said that she did not have sex with the prime minister but that he did pay her 7,000 euros, or about $9,500, the first time she attended a party at his villa outside Milan last spring. Paying for sex with a minor under 18 is illegal in Italy.
Although the scandal has been raging in the Italian news media for weeks and unsettling a growing number of Italians, it has not translated into political defeat for the prime minister, who holds a narrow majority in Parliament. The center-left opposition is weak, and Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition has shown no clear intention of replacing him.
Yet the political climate remains uncertain, and no one has ruled out early elections. “Every day the risk of a short circuit gets closer,” the political columnist Stefano Folli wrote in the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore on Wednesday.
In the past, Mr. Berlusconi has emerged largely unscathed from a dizzying number of trials. He has railed for decades against prosecutors and used his private television and media empire to help shape Italian public opinion. Most Italians have little faith in their justice system.
“I think Berlusconi is in a position to move beyond the Ruby scandal media-wise, but I’m not sure if he can move beyond it in the courts,” said Italo Bocchino, a leader of Future and Liberty, a faction that broke away from Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition last year but largely supported him in an important confidence vote in December.
Last week, the government passed a contentious tax-restructuring measure championed by the Northern League, the most powerful party in the center-right coalition, which had said it would bring down the government if the effort failed.
But the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, subsequently disputed the plan on technical grounds and said he would not approve the current version. He is expected to meet with the leader of the Northern League later on Wednesday.
Besides the so-called Rubygate scandal, Mr. Berlusconi faces other legal hurdles. Last month, Italy’s Constitutional Court partially lifted his immunity, a ruling that reactivated three other trials against him, including one in which his former tax lawyer, David Mills, was convicted of taking a bribe in exchange for false testimony.
Last year, a court threw out the case against Mr. Mills, saying the statute of limitations had run out. But on Tuesday, prosecutors said they would reopen the trial with Mr. Berlusconi as a defendant.
A large anti-Berlusconi demonstration was held in Milan last weekend and others are planned Sunday in cities throughout Italy.
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Italy judge orders Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is ordered to stand trial on charges that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old, then abused his authority by trying to get her released from police custody.
By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times
A judge Tuesday ordered Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial on charges that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl, then abused his authority by trying to get her released from custody after police picked her up on suspicion of stealing.
It was a major setback for the 74-year-old premier, whose personal entanglements for months have overshadowed the business of governing Italy. Berlusconi denies any wrongdoing and says there is a plot by left-wing judges and his political foes to force him from office.
Whether the scandal will cost him his job as prime minister remains unclear. Despite a nonstop stream of controversies surrounding both his business dealings and personal life, Berlusconi has managed to stay in power owing to a fragmented opposition, the loyalty of his proteges in the parliament and his control of most of Italy's commercial television.
Members of Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom party came to his defense Tuesday.
"The Italian judiciary, through a risible investigation, is trying to overturn the democratic order," said Maurizio Lupi, a lawmaker and top party official. "The [judicial] offensive against the prime minister has no precedent either in Italy or in the world."
But opposition leaders called for Berlusconi's resignation and immediate elections.
"Berlusconi should defend himself before the [court] as do all citizens who have nothing to hide," said Anna Finocchiaro, leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate. "But for his sake and that of the nation's dignity he should first resign."
The judge, Cristina Di Censo, acting on hundreds of pages of documents submitted by prosecutors in Milan, ruled that there was sufficient evidence to skip a preliminary hearing and proceed directly to trial, to begin April 6.
Berlusconi's business practices are already the subject of three other court proceedings; this will be the first to center on his personal behavior.
A self-made billionaire-turned-politician, he will not be required to appear in court himself, leaving his team of lawyers to combat charges that he paid to have sex with Karima El Mahroug, a teenage dancer who used the stage name Ruby Rubacuori, or Ruby Heart-Stealer.
Although the age of consent is 14 and prostitution in general is not illegal in Italy, paying for sex with a minor is considered a crime.
Mahroug, who has since turned 18, was a regular attendee of Berlusconi's notorious private parties, which guests have described in interviews and in wiretapped conversations as full of prostitutes. The "bunga bunga" parties routinely featured stripteases and erotic games, attendees said.
Both Berlusconi and Mahroug deny that they had sex. But Mahroug has said that Berlusconi gave her jewelry and about $9,500 in cash.
Prosecutors allege that in May when Mahroug was arrested in Milan on suspicion of theft in an unrelated incident, Berlusconi's office applied undue pressure on the police to release her from custody, claiming that she was a relative of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and that her detention could cause a diplomatic confrontation.
Prosecutors accuse Berlusconi of intervening to prevent his relationship with Mahroug from coming to light. Berlusconi says he stepped in merely out of compassion for a young woman in a tough spot.
His lawyers insist that prosecutors in Milan have no jurisdiction over a case involving the prime minister. Berlusconi's defense team is also expected to argue that Mahroug is older than her official documents state.
The ruling Tuesday was handed down two days after hundreds of thousands of women staged protests against Berlusconi in cities across Italy. They accused him of degrading women and reinforcing the sexism prevalent in Italian society.
After the decision was released, one of Berlusconi's attorneys, Piero Longo, said, "We expected nothing different," apparently alluding to the fact that the judge, Di Censo, is a woman. All three judges who will hear the trial are women.
Berlusconi denies that he insults women's dignity. He has said that, on the contrary, he tries to make women feel "special" and that loving women is preferable to being gay.
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He already looks like a corpse. :-[
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14 Berlusconi 'bunga bunga' girls evicted from luxury 'Dolls' House' flats where he let them live rent-free
By NICK PISA
Furious residents on one of Milan's most sought-after estates complained they were lowering the tone
Fourteen women named as guests in a sex probe involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have been evicted from their homes after the residents association complained they ‘lowered the tone.’
The women all lived rent-free in the complex after being given the apartments by Berlusconi, 74, and were regulars at his infamous ‘bunga bunga’ sex parties.
Prosecutors are investigating him over claims he had sex with under age prostitutes and extortion after he personally intervened in getting a 17-year-old guest of his released from custody after she was held for theft.
Enlarge
Kicked out: Marysthell Garcia, one of the girls named in a sex probe against Silvio Berlusconi, covers her face as she leaves the luxury Via Olgettina estate, Milan
The gates complex on the outskirts of Milan, Via Olgettina, is one of the most sought after estates in the city and according to prosecutors they lived there rent free in return for having sex with Berlusconi.
Under investigation: Mr Berlusconi, 74, is accused of funding sex parties
With its landscaped gardens, underground parking, supermarket, bars and other facilities it is one of the most modern estates in the city and also houses some of the billionaire's offices but in essence it was also the home of his harem.
Since details of the investigation broke last week, locals have dubbed the estate ‘The Dolls House’ and furious fellow residents on the local association have now ordered the girls to leave within eight days.
Each of the women has been sent a letter from the association asking them to leave because they ‘bring down the tone and decorum of the area’ and their behaviour is not in line with other residents.
Among those asked to leave are TV stars Barbara Guerra, 30, and Marysthell Garcia, 27, who have both been named in the 389 page prosecution document as guests who attended the sex parties.
Others include twins Imma and Eleonora De Vivo, who appeared on the Italian version of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and who were tapped in a telephone conversation talking about having sex with Berlusconi.
Three years ago it emerged that Barbara was one of several women who had spent the weekend with Berlusconi at a health farm and she is also a former girlfriend of Manchester City star Mario Balotelli.
Today Barbara said: ‘I've got the letter in my hand. It's absurd, incredible a nightmare. I've paid rent up until the end of April. It says I have 'disturbed the peace and quiet of the area.'
Lookers: Evicted girl Marysthell Garcia, with Silvio Berlusconi's political crony Nicole Minetti, Ance Spirga and Lavender Ogolla in a dance group on the Colorado Cafe TV show
‘I have not committed any crimes at that house (Berlusconi's) and I don't understand why I have to leave. I have always paid my bills and rent on time.’
Bubbly personality: Barbara Guerra, an Italian TV star, is said to have spent a weekend in a health spa with Silvio Berlusconi accompanied by a host of glamorous models and reality TV stars.
Marysthell said: ‘It's just not fair - where am I going to go ? I don't think this is legal. We have been victims as well - I had to take my name of the entry phone because people were buzzing and insulting me.
‘We've all had these letters from the residents association and we have all been given eight days to leave and if we don't then they will call the police. I've got my lawyer onto this immediately.’
The girls are said to have been put up in the flats with the help of Nicole Minetti, 25, an Anglo-Italian regional councillor with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party and a close friend of his.
Meanwhile in another development today/yesterday the Vatican spoke out for the first time on the scandal with Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone saying it was ‘concerned’ by the case.
Cardinal Bertone said the Holy See was following the case carefully
and stressed public figures had a responsibility in setting an
example for families and young people.
He said: ‘The Holy See is following with attention and concern these.
'Italian affairs that fuel an awareness of a great responsibility towards families and the new generations.’
Berlusconi denies any wrongdoing in the probe into alleged prostitution and abuse of power and says he is the victim of biased prosecutors who he says he will target with new laws so they cannot target him continuously
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349291/Berlusconi-sex-probe-14-bunga-bunga-girls-evicted-rent-free-luxury-flats.html#ixzz1E4lj9Osg
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He looks awful, that boot polish cum hair transplant on his bald head is appalling. But he owns the entire country, owns all the media, has done for many years.
An Italian Chef here in the UK on telly today or yesterday translated the meaning of bunga bunga.
Apparently it means many girls and many places and/or positions.
Only in Italy !
xxx
Linda
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There's a thread on the GT board which has been moved to the Politics Place, it's about Berly nude... click that, it goes into a 153 posted thread about having enough money to have sex with underage children
but this sad divorce and ongoing sex farce is a laughing matter, it's not political, the man is incorrigable. He has no shame.
He actually thinks that by owning all the media and the entire country he is then entitled to make the best 100 14-year old virgin teenage Italian women be his sex slaves.
It's an outrage, there were 1 million women protesting again him on the streets of Rome yet it got no international news coverage.
x
"Se non ora, quando" - "If not now, when" women rally in Florence
Millions of Italian women took to the streets in some 200 cities across the country in protest at Prime Minister's Silvio Berlusconi's alleged behavior toward women.
these pix below are "A moment of the rally that marched trough the streets of Florence".
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Prosecutors: Berlusconi had sex with teen 13 times
(03-15) 12:49 PDT MILAN, (AP) --
Italian prosecutors say that the Italian leader paid for sex with an under-age Moroccan teen 13 times.
The accounting emerged in a seven-page document obtained by The Associated Press marking the closure of the investigation against three Berlusconi aides accused of procuring prostitutes for the premier.
Their case has been separated from Berlusconi's, who faces trial April 6 on charges of under-age prostitution and using his influence to cover it up.
Both Berlusconi and the Moroccan teen, Karima el-Mahroug, known by her nickname Ruby, have denied sex with each other.
The document filed Tuesday seeking the indictments against the aides on charges of soliciting prostitution detail how the sex-fueled parties were organized: dinner, followed by erotic dancing and finally Berlusconi's choice of a sex partner or partners.
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Berlusconi’s Wife Says She Wants a Divorce
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — Less than a week after writing an open letter criticizing her husband for cavorting with much younger women, the wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said she wants to file for divorce.
“I’d like to close the curtain on our married life,” Veronica Lario, 52, Mr. Berlusconi’s wife, told the center-left daily La Repubblica on Sunday. “I was forced to take this step,” she told the Turin daily La Stampa. “I don’t want to add anything else.”
An assistant to Ms. Lario, Paola Giponi, on Sunday confirmed the press reports, while Mr. Berlusconi released a brief statement to the ANSA news agency. “It’s a personal matter, and one that saddens me,” the prime minister said. “It’s a private issue that’s best not discussed.”
If Ms. Lario does file for divorce, it is unclear whether Mr. Berlusconi, 72, would be affected politically. Despite colorful gaffes that would sink a politician elsewhere, Mr. Berlusconi enjoys more power and popularity than ever before, thanks to the disarray of his left-wing opposition and his brilliant reading of Italian sensibilities.
In fact, part of Mr. Berlusconi’s success lies in his ability to present himself at once as a devoted family man and a consummate ladies’ man — a contradiction embodied in his marriage to Ms. Lario.
The two met in Milan in 1980, when she was an actress appearing nude in a play called “The Magnificent Cuckold,” and he a married, up-and-coming real estate tycoon. Mr. Berlusconi left his first wife for Ms. Lario. They had three children before marrying in a civil ceremony in 1990.
The news of the impending break-up came after days of soap-opera drama. On Tuesday, Ms. Lario wrote an open letter to the ANSA news agency complaining about her husband’s roving eye — her second such public declaration in recent years.
Ms. Lario criticized reports that Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition planned to nominate a slate of attractive young women for the European Parliament, including the star of a reality television show.
Choosing candidates seemingly on the basis of their headshots more than their political experience was “shamelessly trashy,” Ms. Lario said.
Ms. Lario was also angered by press reports that Mr. Berlusconi had attended the 18th birthday party in Naples of Noemi Letizia, who has said in several recent interviews that she called the prime minister “daddy” and that he had given her a gold and diamond necklace.
“That surprised me,” Ms. Lario told ANSA. “Because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his own children, even if he was invited.”
Mr. Berlusconi countered that his wife has been subject to the “manipulations” of the left-wing press. “I’m afraid that the ‘signora’ believed what she read in the newspapers,” ANSA quoted him as saying last Wednesday.
In the ensuing days, Italian newspaper Web sites have carried pictures of Ms. Letizia posing in her underwear, and national conversation has been dominated by speculation about the nature of the relationship between the prime minister and the young woman.
On Sunday, La Repubblica said that Ms. Lario had been contemplating divorce for years. In hiring a lawyer and opening proceedings, “I would like to avoid conflict,” La Repubblica quoted her as saying.
Yet any divorce would inevitably cause inheritance battles between Mr. Berlusconi’s two children from his first marriage and the three from his second with Ms. Lario over control of his vast real estate and media empire, valued in the billions.
Mr. Berlusconi and Ms. Lario are rarely seen in public together and there has been palace intrigue for years.
In 2007, Ms. Lario published a letter on the front page of La Repubblica demanding an apology from Mr. Berlusconi after news reports quoted him praising the beauty of a showgirl whom he later named equal opportunities minister, saying: “If I weren’t already married, I would marry you right now.”
“These are statements I consider damaging to my dignity,” Ms. Lario said at the time.
The same day, Mr. Berlusconi, who was running for a third term as prime minister, quickly issued a public apology, which political analysts speculated was aimed at winning over women voters.
“Your dignity should not be an issue: I will guard it like a precious material in my heart even when thoughtless jokes come out of my mouth,” Mr. Berlusconi said then. “Forgive me, however, I beg of you, and take this public testimony of private pride that submits to your anger as an act of love. One among many. A huge kiss. Silvio.”
No surprise here, really. Berlusconi has about 20 women on the side if not more and his major links with the Italian mob.
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modern day Batiatus stuff right there!
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Clooney called by Berlusconi's defense as witness
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press
Silvio Berlusconi's defense lawyers on Tuesday named George Clooney, the Italian foreign minister and a bevy of showgirls as witnesses at the premier's upcoming prostitution trial, an attorney and news reports said.
Prosecutors, for their part, have asked to hear from 136 witnesses, including the Moroccan teenager at the center of the scandal and 32 other women who allegedly worked as prostitutes during parties at Berlusconi's villa, according to Italian news reports.
Both sides presented their lists of witnesses at the Milan tribunal where the trial opens next week. A judge must now decide which witnesses to admit.
The 74-year-old Berlusconi is accused of having paid for sex with the Moroccan, who is known as Ruby and was 17 at the time, and then using his influence to try to cover it up. The premier denies wrongdoing.
Clooney was listed because Ruby once said she had seen the Hollywood star and his Italian girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis at one of Berlusconi's parties, according to the law firm representing Berlusconi.
"We want to see if they confirm this fact or not," said attorney Piersilvio Cipollotti.
An email sent to Clooney's representative wasn't immediately answered.
Italian newspapers reported months ago that Ruby had said Clooney, who has a mansion on Lake Como north of Milan, and Canalis were guests at one of Berlusconi's parties. According to a Feb. 22 report in leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, prosecutors talked with Canalis last month and she denied that she and Clooney attended any of the premier's parties.
Berlusconi's defense also listed Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and other Cabinet officials amid the 78 people named as witnesses, Cipollotti said. Mariano Apicella, the Neapolitan composer who performs for Berlusconi, as well as showgirls and TV personalities who frequented Berlusconi's parties were also named, according to the ANSA and LaPresse news agencies.
Ruby, whose real name is Karima el-Mahroug, turned 18 in November.
Berlusconi is accused of having had several sexual encounters with her between Valentine's Day last year through May 2, 2010 in exchange for money. The premier is also accused of abusing his influence when he called police in May to get Ruby out of custody in Milan, where she had been held for an unrelated theft. She was eventually released.
Prosecutors say the premier wanted to keep his sexual relations with the girl secret. Berlusconi has said he intervened because he believed Ruby was the niece of now ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and wanted to prevent a diplomatic incident.
According to news reports, prosecutors have also cited as witnesses Milan police officials involved in Ruby's brief detention, as well as three Berlusconi associates also under investigation in the scandal: an ex-showgirl and Berlusconi's dental hygienist recently elected at a local post with the premier's party; a TV agent; and TV newscaster and longtime Berlusconi friend.
Berlusconi says he plans to attend hearings of the trial, which opens April 6, as much as his official duties allow. He also faces two other trials and a possible indictment relating to his business dealings.
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Italy's Berlusconi found guilty of tax fraud, sentenced to prison
LONDON -- Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was found guilty of tax fraud Friday and sentenced to four years in prison, a stunning setback for the media mogul-turned-politician who has dominated Italy's political landscape for the last 20 years.
But Berlusconi, 76, will almost certainly appeal the verdict and is not expected to go to prison anytime soon -- and possibly not at all because of Italian restrictions against putting someone his age behind bars, analysts say.
Still, the conviction is a blow for a man who only a few months ago floated the idea of a comeback as Italy’s leader after having been forced to step down last November. Earlier this week, Berlusconi ended speculation by announcing that he would not run for reelection after all but would focus on grooming younger leaders.
Whether the decision to retire from elected office was made in anticipation of a guilty verdict in the tax fraud trial is unclear. Besides the prison term, the sentence handed down Friday in Milan bars Berlusconi from holding public office for three years, the Italian news agency Ansa reported.
The case centered on purchases by Berlusconi’s company, Mediaset, of television rights for American movies. Prosecutors argued that Mediaset bought the rights through offshore entities and then falsely declared those payments in order to avoid paying taxes.
The trial began six years ago but made only spasmodic progress, partly because of delaying tactics by Berlusconi’s defense team and because of an on-again, off-again immunity law for certain elected officials. He has two levels of appeal open to him, meaning that the case could drag on for some years.
Many Italians believed that Berlusconi would never be convicted for his alleged offenses because of the way his government tried to manipulate the judicial system and because of his vast fortune and political connections.
Aside from the case decided Friday, Berlusconi is also on trial on charges of paying for sex with an underage girl whom he later allegedly tried to spring from police custody by using his political influence. That influence is likely to diminish significantly now, analysts say.
When the flamboyant and controversial former leader announced Wednesday that he would not stand for reelection, Berlusconi told Italian media that his decision to step back was motivated by the same patriotism that induced him to go into politics nearly 20 years ago.
“For love of Italy one can do crazy things and wise things,” he said. “Now I want to take a step back with the same love that moved me to act then.”
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Italy's Berlusconi Told to Pay Nearly $50 Million Per Year in Alimony
By Eric J. Lyman
ROME – Francesca Pasquale, take note: apparently, it can pay to be the former Mrs. Silvio Berlusconi.
Just days after the 76-year-old Berlusconi, Italy’s billionaire media tycoon and three-time prime minister, announced he got engaged to Pasquale, 27, terms of divorce from Berlusconi’s second wife, Veronica Lario, were revealed.
He will pay her €36 million ($47.2 million) per year in alimony payments. That works out to be nearly €100,000 ($131,000) per day.
The final figure is below the €43 million ($56.3 million) per year Lario asked for, but ten times the €3.6 million ($4.7 million) per year Berlusconi offered.
The judge’s decision announced Friday is the culmination of a three-year divorce ordeal started in 2009 after Lario announced she was leaving Berlusconi because of his taste for young women, following the widely reported 18th birthday party of would-be Neapolitan showgirl Noemi Letizia, which Berlusconi attended, paparazzi in tow.
Berlusconi’s taste for young women did not abate after Lario’s comments. Even before his engagement to Pasquale, the former dancer nearly 50 years her fiancé’s junior, Berlusconi was linked to scores of young women through his famous “bunga bunga” sex parties. Berlusconi is under investigation for allegations of paying an under-age cabaret dancer named Karima el-Mahroug for sex.
But the case involving el-Mahroug -- who is best known by her stage name, Ruby the Heart Stealer -- is not the greatest of Berlusconi’s concerns at the moment. He is also under investigation for abuse of power, a more serious charge, and in October was sentenced to four years behind bars for tax fraud. Earlier this month, prosecutors asked a judge to sentence Berlusconi to at least a year in jail in connection to a wiretap case involving a political rival.
All the while, Berlusconi had time to orchestrate a political maneuver that triggered the resignation of Mario Monti, his successor as prime minister, and to start laying the groundwork for another run for prime minister in 2013.
Berlusconi is one of the richest people in Italy -- notwithstanding his divorce settlement with Lario -- mostly on the strength of the Mediaset television and cinema giant he founded. Mediaset includes three national television networks in Italy and one in Spain, plus Medusa, the film production and distribution house.