The resigning mayor of Avellino, Gianluca Festa, has been arrested. The former member of the Democratic Party is involved in ainvestigation for embezzlement and undue inducement to give and promise benefitsand it’s time to house arrest together with an architector, brother of a municipal councilor, Fabio Guerriero and one municipal manager. The Carabinieri, in charge of the investigation by the Avellino prosecutor’s office, also carried out searches on the deputy mayor Laura Nargi, the councilor Diego Guerriero, group leader Viva la Libertà, civic list in support of Festa, and brother of Fabio and the Canonico brothers, president and accountant of DelFes, a Serie B basketball team.
At the center of the investigations is the Serie B basketball team, attributable to Festa. For investigators, he obtained sponsorships from companies that were
recipients of contracts and assignments from the Municipality of Avellino. The investigators therefore hypothesize that there is a criminal association. The greatest passion of Gianluca Festa, 50 years old, is basketball. Mayor of Avellino since June 2019It’s a party discharged on March 25 when the Avellino prosecutor’s office searched his home and office. And precisely during the communication of the news to the press, he referred to his beloved basketball, and to the fact that what the prosecutor was challenging him was related to basketball. In fact, when he was elected, the city’s team, the historic Scandone club, founded in 1948 and in Serie A for 20 years, had gone bankrupt. He had played there as a starter in 1995. A setback for Avellino and the fans, that failure, and so, in order to save basketball, Festa paid 20 thousand euros from his bank account to guarantee the registration of an Irpinia team in the championship series B.
Now Festa is under house arrest, under investigation among others together with the managing director of the team, Delfes, Gennaro Canonico for alleged contracts directed to the Municipality of Avellino for the crimes of corruption, criminal association, public disturbance and forgery of public documents. Some of the companies that won the contracts also supported the basketball club financially. “There is nothing because there has never been anything and nothing came out of the searches either. Whoever thought this was a bomb found themselves with a fuse in their hands. And if anyone thought they could lead the approaching election campaign, he made a mistake. Because we are good people and we will wait for the outcome of the investigations. Which will lead to nothing”, Festa said in the aftermath of the searches.