Four years and two months after the arrests that earthquake one of the most important private TV stations in Naples. The first instance trial against four defendants ended with heavy sentences, including Lucio Varriale, de facto publisher of Julie TV and author – according to the accusations – of a scheme to defraud Corecom of at least 2.3 million euros in public funding for local television publishing.
The seventh section of the Court of Naples sentenced Varriale to 7 years and 10 months in prison, to perpetual disqualification from holding public offices and to pay damages to the Ministry of Communications, which filed a civil action. Also sentenced were Varriale’s longtime collaborator, Carolina Pisani, put in charge of one of the companies of the ‘Varriale group’ (5 years and 2 months), and the two trusted accountants, Claudio Erra (5 years and ten months) and Renato Oliva ( 5 years and 4 months).
The prosecution system of the Naples prosecutor’s office led by the acting Rosa Volpe was essentially confirmed, who had asked for a sentence of 8 years and 8 months for Varriale for charges ranging from criminal conspiracy, to fraud, to the issuing of false invoices, formulated at the end of investigations conducted by the tax unit of the Guardia di Finanza and coordinated by prosecutors Stefano Capuano, Francesco Raffaele, Raffaello Falcone and Vincenzo Piscitelli.
During the process, Julie TV, which at the time occupied channel 19 of the Neapolitan digital terrestrial network, declared bankruptcy and was closed. Consequence of the millionaire kidnappings that accompanied the precautionary measures against Varriale and his accomplices. But until almost all of 2018 Varriale occupied the screens of Julie TV with a column, ‘Your Honor’, with which he targeted the magistrates who had dealt with his investigations and the financiers who investigated him almost daily. In addition to being the author of a “dossier” entitled ‘375 CP. Misdirection at the Palace of Justice. The Naples case. On the cover there was a cap similar to that of the Fiamme Gialle.
Traces of this activity have remained in the order of the judge for preliminary investigations who in November 2018 ordered the house arrest of Varriale: “There is no doubt that this behaviour, which makes use of the use of televisions in order to discredit anyone who gets in the way to the realization of the designs and aims pursued, represents an index of the strengthening of the precautionary needs identified”. Other judicial clouds are now gathering over the head of Varriale. Last April, the former publisher was arrested by the investigating judge of Rome on charges of aggravated slander, carried out through a flurry of dossiers sent by email to hundreds of recipients from the judicial and journalistic world.
The ordinance, the result of an investigation by prosecutor Carlo Villani, identified 19 injured parties, including 17 magistrates from Naples, a lawyer, a journalist. The file was then transferred to Perugia due to the presence among the ‘victims’ of Varriale of the chief prosecutor of Naples Giovanni Melillo, in the meantime appointed national anti-mafia prosecutor in Rome. Finally, a trial is pending in Naples in which Varriale is accused of extortion against the former governor of Campania Stefano Caldoro, the object of a violent media campaign on his TV many years ago.
The article Editor Lucio Varriale sentenced to 7 years and 10 months: he was accused of defrauding 2.3 million euros of public funds with Julie TV comes from Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Publisher Lucio Varriale sentenced to 7 years and 10 months: he was accused of defrauding 2.3 million euros of public funds with Julie TV
