Thursday, June 29, 2017

Sollecito Loses Supreme Court Appeal Against Florence Court Ruling Refusing $0.55M Damages Claim

Posted by Peter Quennell


No Big Bloodmoney Payday

Our previous posts on this can be seen here and here and here.

UK reporter Krissy Allen of Blasting News kindly summarises the Italian reporting.

Here are some excerpts. Emphasis is added to key sentences confirming a rebuttal of Knox claiming “vindication” in the post just below and in those earlier posts.

Raffaele Sollecito has today been denied any compensation for the four years he spent in prison, one year on remand, and three years until the final Supreme Court Appeal decision in March 2015.

The problem is, although acquitted, it was on the grounds of ‘insufficient evidence’ and not a straightforward exoneration.

After having to wait six months for the written reasons, in Sept 2015, Sollecito then had the way clear to put in a claim for compensation, which Italian law allows for wrongful imprisonment

However the statute that allows compensation for wrongful imprisonment specifically excludes defendants who lie to the police, described as ‘gross misconduct’.

In other words, the Florence Appeal Court in January this year dismissed Sollecito’s claim for this reason.

It deemed that Sollecito had committed ‘willful misconduct’ or ‘at the very least, gravely negligent or imprudent.’

It found it ‘implausible’ that he could not account for the movements of his then-girlfriend, Amanda Knox. It states that both he and Amanda Knox lied many times and that it was an ‘indisputable fact of absolute certainty’ that Knox was at the murder scene ‘when the young Meredith Kercher was murdered’.

Sollecito through his lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno immediately appealed to the Supreme Court, citing the fact of Rudy Guede’s shoeprint being mistaken for his. However, this was never the point of law for which Sollecito was refused his demand for the maximum 517,000 Euro compensation….

It means the written reasons of the Florence Court of 10 Feb 2017, stands. It is damning and scathing of the pair’s behaviour throughout the investigation.

In effect, it blocks any compensation claim Amanda Knox might have had her eye on from Italy….

Sollecito’s lawyer, Bongiorno has made a statement that he now plans to take it to the European Court of Human Rights. This would not be an appeal as the ECHR has no jurisdiction to overturn the verdict. Rather, it can make an award should it decide there was unfairness in the procedure.

The average award of the ECHR is circa 3,500 Euros - a far cry from the 517K Euros Sollecito was demanding.

Also in La Republica the increasingly hapless Sollecito claims that he is near broke and he is unable to find a job because of the cloud hanging over him.

Maybe we’ll see yet another burst of anger against Knox for dropping him in this. It may actually gain him some sympathy, though it is hard to see that paying any bills.

In his ongoing Florence book trial he is going to have to admit publicly that he lied and defamed - defamed both numerous people and Italy and its justice system - the felony crimes of diffamazione and vilipendio.

Either that or end up with a huge award against him, maybe leaving him deeply in debt.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/29/17 at 03:38 PM in

Comments

So. Another gain in the rollback by the remorseless anti-mafia forces of Italian justice…

Without his godfather Sollecito sure aint winning anything these days. 

***

Some more translation from Guermantes on PMF; she kindly lets us use all her work:

Cassation: No Compensation for Raffaele Sollecito

No compensation for unjust imprisonment to Raffaele Sollecito. Thus has decided the Fourth Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation, rejecting the appeal with which the defenders of the young man asked to re-evaluate the compensation claim - equal to 516 thousand euros - already rejected by the Court of Appeal in Florence last February.

The Florence judges had dismissed the claim for compensation by highlighting the fact that Sollecito, in the early stages of the investigation, had been found to have engaged in “misleading” and “severely deceitful” conduct. It will take about a month to know the reasons behind today’s decision of the Supreme Court.

CORRIERE QUOTIDIANO

The Supreme Court denies compensation to Sollecito. “Inexplicable, as a result of this story, I cannot find a job”

A verdict that Sollecito called “inexplicable” speaking with his defender, lawyer Giulia Bongiorno. “If you still can’t find a job,” he stressed, “it’s as much as has happened to me. I’m still suffering the consequences of past years as an innocent in prison and I do not understand why this is not acknowledged.”

Giulia Bongiorno noted the contradictory nature of the decision of the Supreme Court, “which, when they acquitted Amanda and Raffaele, spoke of serious contradictions.” So, for consistency, observed the lawyer, “we expected a minimum of compensation,” she told AdnKronos. “This obviously does not erase Raffaele’s acquittal and I can say that it does not end there - assured Bongiorno - I intend to move forward in Europe because it seems to me that recognition of unjust imprisonment would be the right ending (epilogue).”

The Florence judges had dismissed the claim for compensation by highlighting the fact that Sollecito, in the early stages of the investigation, had been found to have engaged in “misleading” and “severely deceitful” conduct. The lawyers, Giulia Bongiorno and Luca Maori, in the memo presented, argued that he did not lie at all and that even his first statements were in violation of defensive guaranties (his rights to defense.) The reasons behind today’s decision of the Supreme Court will be known within a month.

LA REPUBBLICA

Bongiorno: ‘...that even his first statements (at the validation of arrest hearing, before Judge Matteini) “were in violation of defensive guaranties”. Everybody knows that this is not true: Sollecito had met with his lawyer, Tiziano Tedeschi, before the hearing, and the latter advised him not to speak, but Sollecito was stupid enough not to heed his lawyer’s advice. Now, it’s far too late to lament it and accuse others of “violation of his right to counsel.”

***

Re that smart Repubblica comment in response to Bongiorno, Sollecito’s statement to Matteini was the one where he said he never wanted to see Knox again. It was written down.

“I never want to see Amanda again. Above all, it is her fault we are here.”

THAT was coerced?!!! Bongiorno has told SO MANY LIES. Since midway through the Nencini appeal she has become totally detached from the truth.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/29/17 at 05:52 PM | #

OGGIinfo has Sollecito shouting at the judges:

“A new sentence,” according Giulia Bongiorno and Luca Maori, defenders of Raffaele.” 

https://www.infooggi.it/articolo/omicidio-meredith-la-cassazione-nega-il-risarcimento-a-sollecito/99421/

A decision that Raffaele Sollecito called “inexplicable” and against which his lawyers intend to appeal before the European Court. The young man again shouted his anger at those dramatic years, lived between the courtrooms and his cell: “If today I can not find a job because I’m still suffering the consequences of those years spent in innocent cell, I do not understand why you do not understand everything.

The Supreme Court has, however, endorsed the position of the Court of Appeal of Florence, who in February was denied compensation for wrongful detention arguing that the same Sollecito had helped to cause the detention, as a result of “contradictory statements or even frankly deceitful yields particularly in the initial phases of the investigation.

Bongiorno and Maori will be wondering when are they going to be paid for their legal services if Sollecito is now unemployed and no longer in business.

We see signs of narcissistic behaviour in both of them. 

Amanda Knox and her latest ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ presumed personna and Raffaele as the centre of Italy, with the judiciary revolving around him and his unique problems.

Their egos are gargantuan.  A handful or writs against the jurors who found him guilty.  Knox collecting ‘awards’ at Innocence Conferences and her Edith Piaf act with her imaginary adoring audiences.

What will Raff do, now the bubble has burst?

Posted by KrissyG on 06/30/17 at 03:26 AM | #

Hi KrissyG

Nice catch from Oggi. Can you tell from the Italian reporting which chambers of the Supreme Court issued this?

Bongiorno wants “consistency” but wont ever get it if this is the bypassed First Chambers hitting back.

Things are made worse for her because in their ruling Marasca & Bruno spoke out of both sides of their mouth.

Not for the first time, I wonder if she has ever read their report.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 06/30/17 at 02:02 PM | #

Yes, yes. You’ve put your finger on it: this kick in the teeth from the Court may spark fury at Knox as he feels the cost of tying his fate to hers in what he thought was honour. He swore fealty to a weasel, but figured daddy would pay for his stupidity. As daddy would say, Been there done that. Enough.

Raf probably would expose Knox right now if it didn’t implicate him. He’d more likely be believed than the compulsive liar, Guede.

Took a long time but Raf finally sees he is in a disaster of his own making. His lies cost him a lot. He didn’t honour the truth but a false love He honoured his own love of getting high on drugs, his life controlling habit. Then he met the One. She kicked it up a notch, his using and abusing substances and denying reason.

Poor guy, I almost feel sorry for him if he hadn’t betrayed such a good person as Meredith. Knox seduced what little brain he had completely, as sociopaths do. Yet he can’t shift the blame to Knox 100%. He was mature enough to make his own choices at a critical moment. He’d been reading too much Manga.

Manga and cocaine and alcohol and the wild streak of his new drug-buddy foxy the freak turned his head around until he couldn’t tell right from wrong. She was his excuse to go Burning Man in Perugia.

This ruling is bad news for Knox. She has no chance to get another dime from Italy, the precedent is set and she lied more egregiously than Sollecito did to police.

Bad news for Knox also: this ruling sheds more light on her recent wild claims to attorneys at law conventions of her total “exoneration”.

On separate issue:

I’ve been thinking of The Machine’s opinion that Knox has done nothing positive since her escape to the States, despite Nadeau’s recent Daily Beast article evincing some relative improvement on Knox’s part.

I had vaguely thought in Nadeau’s way, too, but on reflection it was fuzzy thinking about Knox.

Why? Because Knox’s writing for Seattle newspaper is all based on lies. Every column she turns in to the editor. Her traipsing to innocence conventions is more outright lies from loudspeakers. Her book is based on a lie.

The Machine is right.

Anything short of murder is her new good.

She and Sollecito are caught in a trap of their own making, a steel trap. They both want exonerations where none are possible (from earthly courts, that is, I don’t rule out God’s mercy on the souls of all men.)

Thank you, Krissy Allen, for putting the emphasis on the appeal’s reasoning that Knox and Sollecito did NOT receive a full exoneration.

Instead the court brands Sollecito an official liar. They state he is as big a liar as his lover whom another ruling determined was at a murder scene.

They confirm that Sollecito lied and obfuscated to the police in a murder case, then he cried for money for all the trouble he went through to buy his masks and stage his devious performance.

His reasons were his own, but Italy won’t pay for them. He did the wrong thing, not the State of Italy.

His biggest craving since acquittal has been for the Italian State and Justice to apologize to him.

Has he apologized to the police?

Posted by Hopeful on 06/30/17 at 05:19 PM | #

Hi Hopeful,

Raffaele Sollecito has told more lies than Rudy Guede. He will never come clean because he doesn’t want anyone to ever know what he did to Meredith. He wasn’t some passive bystander.

Posted by The Machine on 06/30/17 at 08:35 PM | #

Guilty Raffaele Sollecito and Guilty Amanda Knox have both stated in recent interviews that they are still in contact, (how they gushed about each other in the Netflix doc).  So Raffaele could phone Knox for support.

Oh yes, I’m sure that a nice supportive chat between the two will (NOT) happen.

Posted by DavidB on 07/01/17 at 09:42 AM | #

Very satisfying news!

Posted by Wascana on 07/01/17 at 07:33 PM | #

Hi, Peter, the ruling against Sollecito was from the fourth chambers.

Posted by Ergon on 07/02/17 at 10:58 PM | #

“Hi, Peter, the ruling against Sollecito was from the fourth chambers.”

Thanks! The feeling is said to be pervasive in the rest of the court that Marasca and Bruno of the fifth got it wrong.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/02/17 at 11:56 PM | #

Pardon my sarcasm, but ....

What exactly is he trying to prove?  The Judges who let him off slipped in the ‘‘we still think he’s guilty’’ knife.  Why pick another fight?

If he is broke, what exactly is financing these legal bills?  I.O.U.?  Contingency?

If RS actually wanted to get money, wouldn’t he have a far stronger case suing Knox?  She after all, was there, repeatedly lied, and the calunnia is finalised. Yes, small detail in that she could turn on him.

Also, wouldn’t he have a better case suing Maori or Bongiorno for malpractice?  Seems their skills fell far short.

Dont get me wrong, I believe he is owed nothing.  Just saying there are easier targets.

Any details, on the ‘‘Honor Bound’’ settlements?

Otherwise, great news all around

Posted by Chimera on 07/03/17 at 05:01 AM | #

Hi Chimera

Why do I doubt that you think RS is that rational?!  Though he will turn again on AK, we only have to wait a while.

Maori has quite possibly already walked away. In RS’s book he accuses Maori of being iffy. And Maori has severe legal problems on another front, meddling with forensic evidence, which could put him out of business as a lawyer. Plus there is Dr Mignini’s pending case against him.

Bongiorno is harder to read. She played it fair through 2009 while keeping RS at arms length. Then she seems to started off down a slippery slope - her abuse of power as head of Parliament’s Justice Committee, the corrupt move resulting in the appointing of Hellmann, the screaming at Nencini during the Florence appeal, the corrupt move resulting in Marasca and Bruno.

She seems to have become way too invested. Some of her clients have been mafia and it reads to me like she has fully become one of their tools for taking Italian justice down a peg.

At the same time she does not do all of RS’s legal business - she stepped right back from defending his book for which RS is becoming a big loser. A main post on all of this seems overdue.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/03/17 at 03:09 PM | #

Great news! Thanks for the update Peter.

Posted by Johnny Yen on 10/12/20 at 08:00 PM | #

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