Bari, the “database with 2 thousand names” and the “signals” on the cards appear in the investigation –

Another political-judicial earthquake in Puglia and in particular in the province of Bari. Alessandro Cataldo, husband of the PD’s regional transport councilor, Anita Maurodinoia, and the mayor of Triggiano, Antonio Donatelli, were arrested under house arrest. Councilor Maurodinoia herself appears to be under investigation and in the morning she resigned. The investigation file concerns alleged electoral corruption in the small municipality of Grumo Appula in the Bari area, relating to the administrative elections of 20 and 21 September 2020, and of 3 and 4 October 2021 in the municipality of Triggiano.

According to what we learn, the president of the Puglia Region, Michele Emiliano, has accepted the resignation of the Transport Councilor, Anita Maurodinoia. The councilor is under investigation and this morning she was also searched as part of the ordinary prosecutor’s investigation into electoral corruption. Ten people were the recipients of the measure carried out by the Carabinieri: the councilor for the Municipal Police of the municipality of Grumo Appula, 30-year-old Nicola Lella, is in prison, seven people are under house arrest including the mayor of Triggiano (Ba) Antonio Donatelli and Sandro Cataldo, contact person of the «South at the center» party and husband of the regional councilor Maurodinoia. Two other people were banned from staying in the municipality of Triggiano. All would be involved, in various capacities, in an association aimed at electoral corruption, through an illicit mechanism with reference to the administrative elections of 20 and 21 September 2020 in the municipality of Grumo Appula, and of 3 and 4 October 2021 in the municipality of Triggiano.

From the documents of the investigation coordinated by the Bari Prosecutor’s Office it emerged that among some suspects there was a “database with more than two thousand names with telephone numbers and photocopies of identity cards and electoral cards”, we read in the order of precautionary custody as reported by LaPresse. It would be a list of “people to whom a monetary consideration would be given in exchange for the vote”. There would also be a system of control and verification of the vote carried out through identifying signs capable of allowing the recognition of the preference.