Parmalat Prosecutors Accept Plea Agreement With Ex-Accountants

April 5, 2005
By Sara Gay Forden

Milan prosecutors probing the collapse of Parmalat Finanziaria SpA, Italy's biggest bankruptcy, accepted plea agreements with two former company accountants, who would receive reduced prison sentences.

Gianfranco Bocchi and Claudio Pessina will plead guilty to market manipulation in exchange for a one-year prison sentence Pessina's lawyer Oreste Giambellini said today. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail

This morning the prosecutors gave their approval to the requests for plea agreements by nine defendants, including Claudio Pessina,'' Giambellini said in a telephone interview.

The maker of Santal juices and Kyr yogurt went bankrupt in December 2003 and later disclosed more than 14 billion euros ($18 billion) of debt, about eight times the amount reported by its former management. Milan prosecutors have requested indictments against Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi and 28 others, including Bocchi and Pessina.

Judge Cesare Tacconi, who is conducting the preliminary hearing in the Milan criminal case, must approve the plea agreements.

Eugenio Fusco, one of three prosecutors investigating Parmalat in Milan, also accepted a plea agreement with the company's former finance director, Fausto Tonna, who would receive a prison sentence of 2 years and six months, Italian news agency Radiocor reported, without saying where it got the information.

Oreste Dominioni, Tonna's defense attorney, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the matter.

Prosecutors in Milan and Parma are investigating evidence of more than a decade of fraud at the company founded by Tanzi in 1961.

Labels: Parmalat