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In the request to the investigating judge, prosecutors Roberto Terzo and Federica Baccaglini confirm the main accusation of corruption charges against the mayor, the general manager and the deputy chief of staff of Ca’ Farsetti, Morris Ceron and Derek Donadini

VENICE May 12, 2025

The Venice prosecutor’s office has asked the investigating judge to send the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, to trial along with the other suspects (there were 34 in total) in the corruption investigation known as “Palude” involving the Municipality. This was reported by ANSA. In the request to the investigating judge, prosecutors Roberto Terzo and Federica Baccaglini confirm the main accusation of corruption charges against Brugnaro, the general manager and deputy chief of staff of Ca’ Farsetti, Morris Ceron and Derek Donadini, and former councilor Renato Boraso.

The indictment against Brugnaro and his collaborators involves Singaporean magnate Ching Chiat Kwong in relation to negotiations over the sale, never completed, of 41 hectares of the Pili area on the edge of the Venice lagoon. The area, which is heavily polluted, had been purchased by Brugnaro for 5 million euros before his entry into politics and registered in the name of the company “Porta di Venezia”, which was later merged into a blind trust in 2017.

The investigations also take into consideration the offer to sell Palazzo Poerio Papadopoli to Ching at a reduced price, for which a bribe of 73 thousand euros was allegedly paid to former councilor Renato Boraso (arrested in July 2024). This was accompanied by the proposal that the magnate develop a building project at Pili for a price of around one hundred million euros, with the promise of a change of zoning.

Other charges include urban planning operations benefiting Venetian entrepreneurs: building projects and parking lots near the airport, contracts for the maintenance of municipal offices and software used by the Municipality. As part of the same investigation, the preliminary hearing for the plea bargain regarding 12 of the corruption charges involving Boraso and three entrepreneurs is set for May 16. This phase will require the former councilor to return 400 thousand euros and agree to a sentence of 3 years and 10 months in prison. The entrepreneurs are Daniele Brichese, for 3 years and 10 months with 7 thousand euros confiscated, Francesco Gislon, 2 years and six months and 45 thousand euros confiscated, and Fabrizio Ormenese, sentenced to 2 years and 9 months.

The Defense

The mayor reiterated his position on Tuesday May 13, with a statement to reporters on the sidelines of the Venice leg of the Festival of the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development: “I am disappointed but I expected it” – he said, referring to the request for indictment – “because it would take a lot of courage to say ‘after years of investigation we have found nothing’: that is what this is about. There is nothing in the documents. There is a single accuser (the entrepreneur Claudio Vanin, ed.) with zero credibility, and everything is based on what this person who has an obvious interest says. More than this I don’t know, because I have done nothing. I have faith in the judiciary – concludes Brugnaro – and I remain available: I know I have a clear and clean heart, I know I have done well and I will continue to do my job because I have had an important mandate from the voters. I have made promises, and I want to finish the work I have done”.

A statement was also released by general manager Ceron through his lawyer Alberto Berardi, who also focuses on the ways in which the news was spread: “I note, with bitter disenchantment, that the practice of notifications of judicial documents by press has not ceased, not even on this delicate occasion”, writes the lawyer. “The prosecutor’s choice, if confirmed by formal documents, which are currently unknown to the parties, appears to be very challenging, because it attributes the qualification of defendants to the top of the municipal administration for false accusations by a complicit accuser who the documents have already blatantly denied. All on the basis of an investigative platform absolutely unsuitable to imagine any hypothesis of criminal liability”.

Source: Venice Today