"Mayor Minervini may repeat the crime": the reasons for the preliminary investigation in the Molfetta case.

Molfetta Mayor Tommaso Minervini and several municipal officials allegedly acted "in pursuit of personal interests." This was stated by the judges of the Bari Review Court in the reasons for the order that recently banned Minervini from approaching municipal offices (mitigating the precautionary measure of house arrest to which the mayor was subjected for twenty days). The judges explained that "the non-occasional nature of the conduct, combined with the current nature of the position held and the existence of ongoing tender procedures, leads to the belief that there is a real risk" of the crimes being repeated.

The preliminary investigation court, however, downplayed the charges leveled against Minervini, dismissing the serious evidence on three of the charges brought against the mayor by the Trani prosecutor's office: corruption (the votes Minervini allegedly received in exchange for a project-financed contract for a dock in the new commercial port from port entrepreneur Vito Totorizzo), bid-rigging (the tender for Porta Futuro, about which the mayor and manager Lidia De Leonardis, also under interdiction, exchanged notes), and obstruction of justice. The charges of forgery (in relation to the financing of the market area works), embezzlement (for the authorization to clear the offices of bugging devices), and bid-rigging for other port works that Minervini—again according to the prosecution—wanted Totorizzo to carry out remain.

The Finance Police investigation suggests that Minervini promised contracts to gain electoral advantages, specifically the votes needed to win the 2022 runoff election...

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