ANSWER: From what Ladisa told me, this Nicola was unaware of the contents of the envelope. He was a clerk in Avvocato Salvagno’s office and was simply doing what he was told to do.
The quotations from the interview transcript continued for a few more lines with other non-essential details about what Capodacqua knew and how he had learnt it. But that was the gist of it. Ladisa told him he had paid – through his wife, his lawyer and an apparently unwitting office clerk – five thousand euros to Pierluigi Larocca to obtain his release from a sentence for the serious crimes of usury and extortion.
If it were true, it would be a pretty repulsive story.
“Is there anything more disgusting than a judge who sells himself out? What do you think, Mr Punchbag?”
Mr Punchbag doesn’t like bastards, so the question was a rhetorical one. I drained my glass, resisted the temptation to refill it, and went on reading.
After the fragments of Capodacqua’s first interview, there were references to a second transcript, this time of a statement before the Prosecutor’s Department in Lecce, subsequent to the case being transferred there. There was nothing new: he had basically confirmed what he had said before to the magistrates of the anti-Mafia directorate in Bari.
Before moving on to an analysis of the evidence, the judge in Lecce made a digression on the criteria prescribed by the Supreme Court for evaluating statements made by those who have turned state’s evidence.
It may be useful at this point to recall the obvious guidance given by the law in regard to evaluating statements by individuals under article 210 and interpreting articles 192 and 195 of the code of criminal procedure. It is obvious that in the first place it is necessary to examine the reliability intrinsic to the statements of the said individual in accordance with the provisions of article 192, paragraph 3. The judge must firstly address the problem of the credibility of the declarant in relation, among other things, to his personality, his socio-economic and family conditions, his past, his relations with those he is accusing and how recently he has decided to confess and to accuse fellow perpetrators and accomplices; secondly, he must verify the intrinsic consistency of the statements of the declarant, in the light of criteria including, among others, precision, coherence, constancy and spontaneity. Finally, he must examine the so-called external evidence. The judge’s examination must be carried out following the indicated logical order, because he cannot proceed with a uniform evaluation of the accusation and the other elements of evidence that confirm his reliability if he has not first clarified the possible doubts that gather around the accusation itself, independently of the elements of proof external to it.
It should finally be specified that where the statements of the individual concerned are ascribable to the paradigm indicated in article 195 (indirect testimony) the onus to find corroborating evidence is of an even more pressing nature. Those statements that report, even if in a framework of personal reliability and intrinsic credibility, things learnt from others (including those under investigation), pose a twofold demand for corroborating evidence and therefore impose an examination of particular rigour.
The statements of an indirect witness require corroborating evidence; the statements of someone who has turned state’s evidence require corroborating evidence. The statements containing the indirect testimony of someone who has turned state’s evidence (which therefore do not report facts directly perceived but only heard about) require twofold corroborating evidence, even in the custody phase.
Whoever had written that ruling, a woman, was a competent magistrate – although a little verbose. I thought, as I often do, that the same concepts, for which hundreds of words had been used, could have been summed up in a few sentences. More or less like this: you first of all have to work out if the person making the accusation is intrinsically reliable (that is, if he isn’t an obvious liar or if his statements aren’t patently contradictory and implausible), then you have to see if there is corroborating evidence to confirm these statements. The need for corroborating evidence is even stronger if the statements are hearsay and not based on direct personal knowledge. The end.
Jurists, with rare exceptions, are unconsciously and tenaciously averse to clarity and brevity.
Having defined her methods, the judge addressed the question of Capodacqua’s intrinsic reliability. His story – she wrote in her ruling – was consistent, devoid of contradictions, with accents of sincerity (I wondered for a few moments how it was possible to identify the “accents of sincerity” in statements you haven’t heard for yourself and that you read only in the bureaucratic summary of a transcript) and no reasons emerged as to why Capodacqua should have lied and made false accusations.
Having therefore clarified that Capodacqua appeared intrinsically reliable, the ruling went on to examine the so-called objective, or external, corroborating evidence.
This examination hadn’t produced very inspiring results: reading between the lines, it was clear that the judge hadn’t much liked the way in which the Prosecutor’s Department had conducted the investigations. The phone taps carried out on Larocca’s landlines and mobiles had not shown anything substantial. According to the records, there had only been two contacts between Larocca and Salvagno, but it was an element – so the ruling said – devoid of unambiguous significance. Firstly, the contacts had taken place at a period of time different from that of the presumed corruption; secondly, the two of them, according to what had been reported by Capodacqua, were friends and therefore there was nothing strange in the fact that they sometimes (sporadically, in any case) communicated by telephone.
The investigations into Larocca’s bank accounts and assets had not highlighted any unusual cash flow. Larocca took his salary, had shares in a quantity that was entirely compatible with his income, and owned the apartment where he lived. Nothing abnormal there.
The only element classifiable as corroborating evidence in a technical sense was the statement of Nicola Marelli, Avvocato Salvagno’s office clerk, the person who, according to Capodacqua’s statements, had handed over (without knowing the contents) the envelope containing the fifty thousand euros. The ruling quoted extracts from the transcript of Marelli’s brief statement to the prosecutor in Lecce.
ANSWER: I have worked for more than ten years in the office of Avvocato Corrado Salvagno, who unfortunately died last year as the result of a road accident.
ANSWER: It is a group practice and I have continued to work there, with Avvocato Salvagno’s partners, since his death.
ANSWER: As far as I know, Avvocato Salvagno and Judge Larocca had been good friends for a long time.
ANSWER: I did not spend time socially with my employer, so I could not say with any certainty how often, and under what circumstances, he saw Judge Larocca. I remember that the judge was sometimes a guest on Avvocato Salvagno’s boat, occasionally for trips lasting a few days. I think they sometimes met for dinner but, I repeat, I am not in a position to supply details on these meetings.
ANSWER: Every now and then, over the years, I delivered packages from Avvocato Salvagno to Judge Larocca. They were mostly Christmas presents, and I delivered them to the judge’s home.
ANSWER: I deny having ever delivered envelopes or documents of any kind to Judge Larocca. Whenever I had to file papers of relevance to the appeal court on behalf of Avvocato Salvagno, I would go to the clerk of the court’s office and definitely not directly to the judge.
ANSWER: I cannot say for certain that I delivered packages – mostly bottles of wine – to Judge Larocca only on the occasion of the Christmas holidays. It is possible it happened on other occasions. In fact, now that you draw my attention to the circumstance and urge me to remember more clearly, I am able to say that it definitely happened. One of Avvocato Salvagno’s clients is a producer of excellent wines. Sometimes bottles of wine came into the office and Avvocato Salvagno told me to take some to Judge Larocca, who is apparently a lover of good wine.
ANSWER: Avvocato Salvagno would
give me ready-wrapped packages and tell me to take them to the judge’s apartment. Sometimes I left them with the porter, sometimes I delivered them to the judge personally.
ANSWER: I do not know when the last time I made a delivery to Judge Larocca was.
ANSWER: I am aware that you are urging me to make an effort to remember more clearly, in particular if I made any of these deliveries between the month of June and the month of July 2008, that is, a few months before the death of Avvocato Salvagno. I cannot rule out the possibility that I made a delivery before the summer holidays, but I cannot be more specific than that.
ANSWER: I think I made that delivery to the judge personally, in other words without leaving the package with the porter.
ANSWER: Handing over the package, I said it was from Avvocato Salvagno. The judge thanked me. He seemed to know that the package was going to be delivered.
ANSWER: I did not deliver any envelope.
ANSWER: I cannot rule out the possibility that the package contained an envelope, but I do not know because I was not present when the package was wrapped.
ANSWER: Now that I remember more clearly, I can confirm that from the way the judge received me I had the impression he was waiting for me.
Nicola Marelli’s statements – wrote the judge – constituted a small corroboration of Capodacqua’s statements, but were “insufficient in themselves to prove to any acceptable degree the truth or otherwise of the accusation of corruption”.
Continuing her ruling, the judge now clarified her thinking by summarizing its essential points. Capodacqua was reliable when he reported Ladisa’s confidences. It was likely that Ladisa had given Avvocato Salvagno the sum of one hundred thousand euros in the belief that half of that sum would be used to bribe the judge. And it certainly couldn’t be ruled out that the fifty thousand euros really had been paid to Larocca as payment for Ladisa’s release. But nor could another hypothesis be ruled out, which allowed for an alternative explanation of the evidence and prevented the granting of the requested custody order: Salvagno might have been influence peddling.
No element to support the accusation – in fact, rather the opposite – emerged from an examination of the ruling, later confirmed by the Supreme Court, with which the appeal court under Larocca had overturned Ladisa’s sentence and ordered his release.
Such a ruling did not present any evident anomalies, appeared well argued, although perhaps a little too formalistic, and in any case, as already stated, had been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Even an examination of this ruling did not produce any elements to corroborate the accusation of judicial corruption and therefore, as things stood, the petition had to be rejected.
*
When I’d finished reading, I stopped to think.
It was a correct ruling, and all the more admirable when you realized that the judge wasn’t at all convinced of Larocca’s innocence. On the contrary. Reading between the lines, I had the impression she was saying: If I had to – or was allowed to – base my decision purely on my own intuition, on my inner conviction, I would gladly grant the petition for a custody order. Since, however, I am required to observe strict rules on the evaluation of evidence, I can’t do that. Not today, at least – as things stood: there was a menacing undertone in those words at the end of the ruling.
All right, I’ve exaggerated a bit, but that was pretty much the impression I got from reading those papers. And, paradoxically, that impression made me even more nervous than I would have been if the ruling had ordered my client’s arrest.
There are times when hints of suspicion feel much more unpleasant than things that have been openly declared, whether real or presumed. At this point, all I could do was call Larocca and ask to meet.
Or rather, to be more precise, at this point all I could do was throw myself into bed, seeing that it was now late and my eyes were clouded by the exhaustion of a rather intense day and the bourbon that had concluded it. I would phone Larocca the following morning.
As I tossed and turned between the sheets, a troublesome thought occurred to me. If I met that group of boys in three or four years’ time, they would slaughter me.
Time was on their side.
The last image I had before I fell asleep was Annapaola, with her baseball bat, moving with nonchalant elegance.
It’s funny when a man feels safe because he’s physically protected by a woman.
11
I woke up quite late. It was Saturday: I had to call Larocca and I really didn’t feel like it. I looked for every possible excuse to put it off. Shower, shave, breakfast, reading the news online, meticulous checking of a few pointless emails. I thought of having a chat with Mr Punchbag, but he’s not really a morning person. So I decided to look at the local news, just in case they mentioned a night-time brawl in Via De Giosa in which a few kids had got hurt and that a police investigation was under way to identify those responsible. I didn’t find anything, and felt somewhat relieved. The last thing I needed was to find myself being investigated for aggravated assault and grievous bodily harm.
In the end, having run out of excuses, I phoned. It only rang twice, but the voice that answered wasn’t Pierluigi Larocca’s.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Avvocato Guerrieri.”
“I was looking for Judge Larocca. Who am I talking to?”
“This is Manfredi. The judge left me his phone because he’s in the lecture theatre for the seminar.” Then he added, in a tone of apology or justification: “He asked me to answer if there was any call for him.”
He was a clerk of the bar association, and he spoke as if I should have known what seminar he was talking about.
“I’m sorry, Manfredi, what seminar is that?”
“The seminar for the postgraduate students. Wait, let me read you the title: ‘Ethics and roles in criminal trial procedure.’ Judge Larocca’s lecture will be starting soon.”
I decided to go. I would tell Larocca what I’d found out when he finished his lecture or if there was a break in proceedings. It seemed to me a less disagreeable way to communicate such unpleasant news. Of course, I told myself, it would have been even more unpleasant if the examining magistrate hadn’t rejected the custody petition, but I didn’t suppose it would be amusing, for a man whose job was concerned with other people’s freedom, to find out that someone was trying to deprive him of his.
I put on a pair of jeans, a blue shirt and a blue casual jacket. I chose rubber-soled shoes that were maybe a little garish, and didn’t bother with a tie. I hesitated for a moment, then told myself: This isn’t a hearing, it’s Saturday, and anyway, who cares?
As usual, it took me exactly a quarter of an hour to cover the distance between my home and the appeal court, on the sixth floor of which the bar association has its offices. Sometimes the obsessive predictability of my movements, their times and rhythms, feels oppressive. It’s as if my life is like the sum of the routes taken by the ball in an old pinball machine. You had the feeling at first, if you were not expert at the game, that there were a lot of possibilities, accidents, surprises. Then as you continued playing – maybe it was a pinball machine in the bar near your home, or at the seaside, or in the pool hall near school – you realized that the routes repeated themselves. You got to know them all, and after a while you didn’t want to play on that pinball machine any more and went to find another. Finding a new and different pinball machine would be the right cure, I told myself, dismissing the subject from my mind as I got into the lift that would take me up to the bar association.
The lecture theatre was quite crowded and all the seats were occupied, except those in the front rows, to which I’m incontrovertibly allergic and so didn’t even consider.
At the speakers’ table were the head of the bar association, Larocca and a cadaverous-looking man I didn’t recognize. Glancing at the posters for the event, on both sides of the door, I learnt that he was a professor of judicial administration I had never heard of be
fore. He would have been perfect at the reception desk of an undertaker’s.
Larocca must have started just a few minutes earlier, because he was still at the preliminary stage of thank-yous and pleasantries.
I looked around. Most of the seats were occupied by trainees and young lawyers. There were also a few old workhorses who were there to be noticed by Judge Larocca and to congratulate him immediately afterwards or in the succeeding days for his wonderful lecture. Whatever he said.
There weren’t many magistrates present, and those who were had the embarrassed air of people who have ended up somewhere by mistake and now don’t know how to leave without being noticed. A colleague of mine who was part of the bar association and whose name I could never remember – Tommaso or Lorenzo? – appeared at my side, a fine fellow who had inherited an excellent practice but was genetically incapable of understanding the law. “Hello, Guido, what on earth are you doing here? We don’t usually see you at these events.”
“Hello. I had to go to the secretariat for some information, and I saw that this meeting was on. It sounded interesting, so I thought I’d stay.” I didn’t think it was appropriate to inform him of my professional relations with Judge Larocca, let alone the nature of the latter’s legal problems.
“Whenever you need anything from the association or the secretariat, just call me and I’ll see to it. Not that I’m not glad to see you. Quite the contrary. You get my drift, of course?”
“Of course, thank you, you’re very kind,” I said, hoping he would stop there.
“Guido, you know the respect and friendship we feel for each other. If I could do you a favour, I’d be more than happy. But what happened to your face?”
A Fine Line Page 9
