I’ve been commenting on the public machinations and private peccadilloes of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for many years. And I’ve always been stupefied by the way he invariably escaped the consequences of his bad, if not illegal, behavior.
In fact, the only time he appeared to suffer any blow to his Caesarian pride in this respect was in 2007 when his longsuffering wife finally published an Open Letter (in the most popular Italian newspaper media baron Berlusconi does not own), in which she aired the reasons for her dissatisfaction with him as a husband, as the father of her children and, surely most devastating for him, as a lover.
He was evidently so pussywhipped by this unimpeachable indictment of his manhood that he published a groveling Open Letter of his own, in which he shamelessly wooed his wife in an attempt, I presume, to show the world that he could still keep her despite his, em, er, shortcomings.
Alas, his efforts were all in vain. She duly filed for divorce, which was finally settled last year. More to the point, just imagine how unhinged with jealousy the then 70-year-old Berlusconi must have become when reports began circulating that his then (very attractive) 50-year-old wife was beginning to eye young Italian studs the way a cougar eyes baby gazelles.
Consequently, Berlusconi seems to have been on a Faustian quest to re-cultivate his reputation as a lover ever since. This usually entailed hosting “bunga bunga parties” at his Italian villa at which scores of nubile girls catered to his Viagra-engorged desires for a very hefty price.
It is his reported schtupping of underage girls at these bacchanalian soirees that has finally ensnared him in a legal vice grip from which I doubt even he can escape.
Specifically, after years of watching him make a national spectacle of his dalliances with prostitutes (all perfectly legal if they are over 18), prosecutors filed charges yesterday alleging that he paid for sex with a 17-year-old Moroccan girl, and then abused his good offices as premier to get her released from police custody on charges of petty theft.
I am mindful, however, that Italian prosecutors have repeatedly tried (to no avail) to convict Berlusconi for all kinds of other vices – mostly having to do with their abiding suspicion that he amassed his multibillion-dollar fortune through an orgy of insider dealings and other corrupt practices, including tax evasion and bribery.
Which means that their seizing this opportunity to put Berlusconi away for having sex with a minor is rather like American prosecutors seizing the opportunity to put Al Capone away for tax evasion.
In this case, Berlusconi is pleading the same defense that has gotten him out of every other legal vice grip; namely, that these charges are nothing more than the latest “farcical” attempt by overzealous, perhaps even jealous, prosecutors to oust him from power.
Here, in part, is how he responded during a press conference yesterday after they filed their charges:
I can only say that it’s a farce. They are accusations without any basis. The only aim of the inquiry is to defame me in the media. But I am not worried about myself. I am a rich man who could spend his time building hospitals around the world, as I have always wanted, These acts are violating the law… It’s shameful and disgusting.
(BBC, February 9, 2011)
This is actually consistent with my assertion that Berlusconi seems to think of himself as a latter-day Jesus Christ being persecuted by non-believing Roman authorities:
His persecution complex … causes him lament on occasion that he is ‘the person the most persecuted by the judiciary of all times, in all history.’
(The self-fulfilling crucifixion of Silvio Berlusconi, The iPINIONS Journal, December 16, 2009)
But these latest allegations against him were deemed so sacrilege that even the Vatican felt compelled to rebuke him, using the occasion to call on all public officials to:
…commit themselves to a more robust morality, a sense of justice and legality.
(BBC January 20, 2011)
The presiding judge now has five days to rule on the prosecutors’ request to subject Berlusconi to an expedited trial which, if granted, means that he could be in the dock before Easter. They insist that they have more than enough hard evidence to convict him; not least of which are plainly incriminating wiretaps.
Therefore, the only hope for the now 74-year-old Berlusconi is that the judge will play along with his procedural motions to delay his trial (over such technical issues as parliamentary immunity and jurisdiction) until … well … until he dies.
If convicted he faces 15 years in prison.
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The self-fulfilling crucifixion of Silvio Berlusconi