Former Italian PM Going to Jail for Underage Sex

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing power and having sex with an underage prostitute.  Judges also barred the flamboyant former prime minister from holding public office.  The high-profile case centered on an exotic dancer nicknamed “Ruby the heart-stealer.”

Berlusconi’s attorney told reporters he plans to appeal the conviction.  “What happened today is very serious,” defense attorney Nicolo Ghedini said, arguing that judges had not appropriately considered court proceedings. 

Prosecutors had argued that Berlusconi had sex 13 times with underage dancer Karima el Mahroug and abused his position when he intervened in May 2010 to get her released from jail, where she was being held on charges of theft. According to prosecutors, Berlusconi paid el Mahroug and scores of other young women for taking part in “bunga bunga parties” at his private residence.

The women performed stripteases and erotic actions in exchange for money and gifts. Berlusconi says the parties were normal dinner gatherings where no one misbehaved.  “It is absurd to suggest I have paid for a rapport with a woman. It is something I have never done, not even once in my life. It is something I find degrading to my dignity,” Berlusconi said.   He accused prosecutors of conspiring against him in a left-wing plot. “Communism never changes in Italy. There are still people who use the penal code as a weapon in their ideological battles,” he said last year.

The underage sex trial verdict is the latest in a string of legal troubles the former prime minister has faced.  Last month, an Italian appeals court in Milan upheld a four-year prison sentence for Berlusconi, who was convicted of tax evasion by a lower court last October.  In that sentence, he was barred from public office for five years.

Berlusconi, who served on and off as prime minister between 1994 and 2011, is arguably one of the most colorful and controversial figures in the lively history of Italian politics. For years, he has been entangled in fraud, corruption and sex scandals that have often reached Italian courts.