The former Italian president is celebrating this Thursday. Silvio Berlusconi turns 86 and does so at a sweet moment: newly married to the deputy of his Forza Italia party, Marta Fascina (53 years younger than him) and back in power after the victory of Giorgia Meloni (Brothers of Italy, in coalition with Salvini and Berlusconi) last Sunday.
The friend of Vladimir Putin, who defends the invasion of Ukraine and considers the Russian leader his “little brother”, has managed to reach the age of 86 and become one of the richest men in the world. Owner of the Mediaset audiovisual conglomerate, owner and president of AC Milan until 2017 and currently of Società Sportiva Monza 1912, he led the ranking of the richest in Italy in 2011 with a fortune of 7.8 billion dollars, according to Forbes.
In addition, he has managed to emerge gracefully (at least at the polls) from the scandals he has been involved in in recent years. And they are not few.
Child Abuse: Ruby Case
One of Berlusconi’s first and biggest scandals was the denunciation of Karima El Mahroug, a 17-year-old Moroccan woman who accused him of having paid her in exchange for sex. One of his men proposed lowering the legal age for having sex, so that the then president of the Italian Council of Ministers would remain beyond the reach of justice, while Alfano, his Minister of Justice, tried to pass a law that would determine that four of the most important men in the state (president, prime minister, and the presidents of both legislative chambers) could only be tried for crimes related to the exercise of their functions.
Both attempts failed and Berlusconi was tried and found guilty in June 2013 for prostitution of minors and abuse of powerbeing sentenced to seven years in prison and lifelong disqualification from public office.
The Bunga-Bunga festivals
But Karima was not the only one. Berlusconi mounted tremendous parties in the different residences of his, in which he alternated with up to 20 girls at the same time. Strippers, orgies, sexual marathons, drugs and guests, because the former ‘Il Cavaliere’ (honorary title he renounced in 2014 for his controversies) did not enjoy them alone: they saw images in which Mirek Topolanek, former Czech Prime Minister , appeared completely naked in one of them.
The first supporting documents date from 2009. In total, more than 5,000 photographs and stories from up to a dozen young people stating that they had participated in said orgies, some of them being minors, in exchange for money or promises of the future. Karima’s complaint was joined by that of the model Noemi Letizia, whose mother was paid 20,000 euros to silence, and others whose names remained anonymous for a matter of protection and security. Berlusconi was also accused of coercion and threats during the trial, for which he is now being asked for six years in prison.
Also read: The pathetic and unfortunate but tragicomic life of Silvio Berlusconi comes to the cinema
Finally, Berlusconi was acquitted of all charges by the Supreme Court in 2015.because he considered that the prime minister did not have to know the age of the girls who participated in the famous parties.
Tax fraud and corruption
2013 was Berlusconi’s black year. To the sentence for child abuse was added another for tax fraud. The Supreme Court of Cassation sentenced him to four years in prison. (three of which were ‘pardoned’ and the other was placed under house arrest), five years of disqualification from holding public office and the provisional payment of 10 million euros to the Tax Agency for the Mediaset Process, which investigated the sale of US film broadcasting rights between 1994 and 1999 worth €470 million. Berlusconi’s company artificially increased the real price of rights to evade money to the treasury and divert it to accounts abroad.
Just two years later, on July 8, 2015, the Naples court sentenced him to three years in prison for a crime of corruption after having bribed the senator Sergio De Gregorio, to whom he made payments of three million euros between 2006 and 2008 so that he would leave his party and go to Forza Italia, Berlusconi’s formation, and thus cause the fall of the center-left government of Romano Prodi. This time, the Milanese escaped from jail because the crime had prescribed.
The Casanova of the 21st century
Neither the scandals nor the endless misogynistic and sexist comments have managed to detract from the tycoon’s charm, who boasts an extensive love resume and jokes that his latest tests are perfectly normal for a man his age: “90% is viagra.” Married in 1965 to Carla Elvira Dall’Oglio and father of two children, Marina and Pier, he divorced in 1985. Later, he has linked one relationship with another: a Veronica Lariowho became his second wife, followed him Francesca Pascalealmost 50 years younger than him and to whom he paid 20 million and an annual support of one million for life after their separation.
The last one has been Marta Charm, a 32-year-old deputy from Forza Italia, with whom she carried out a symbolic wedding last March. The “love party” took place at Villa Gernetto, one of Berlusconi’s mansions in the town of Gerno, in the province of Mónza, the same one that the businessman wants to be the headquarters of his university dedicated to political studies.
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