I can’t make the appointment and you know the reason. And then I don’t feel like talking on the phone anyway.” “Because my phone right now… So let’s do something, I’ll buy another phone tomorrow, I’ll give you the number and we can write to each other”.
It is the evening of September 3, 2024. The speaker is Gennaro Sangiuliano, at that time still in office as Minister of Culture. On the other end of the phone is Maria Rosaria Boccia, the 41-year-old businesswoman from Pompeii whom the minister had decided to appoint as his advisor for major events, only to later revoke the position.
Boccia is now under investigation by the Rome Prosecutor’s Office for threatening a member of a political body and aggravated injuries after the complaint presented by Sangiuliano himself.
Publishing some excerpts of their conversation – today, Friday 4 October – is Il Fatto Quotidianowhich yesterday revealed another delicate passage in this story: the exchanges of messages between Boccia, Sangiuliano and Alfonso Signorini, director of the weekly Whoon some photo shoots that would have demonstrated the relationship between the minister and the woman.
The phone call in question took place the evening before the infamous interview given by Sangiuliano to Tg1, the one in which the then minister, in tears, apologized to his wife, to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and to his collaborators. On September 6, after an interview with the newspaper by Boccia The PressSangiuliano will resign.
The former minister has always maintained that he revoked the woman’s appointment due to a potential conflict of interest between her activity as an entrepreneur in the events sector and the consultancy work she should have carried out on behalf of the Ministry. Yet, as we have seen, when he speaks on the phone with Boccia, Sangiuliano says he does not want to talk about the reasons why the appointment did not go through.
“I explained to her that I couldn’t name a person who said she was pregnant by me,” says the former minister now, when questioned on the point by Daily Fact.
Meanwhile, in the last few hours Boccia has also returned to talk about the issue in a couple of interviews given to the newspaper The Center and the TV program Clean Square. In both cases the woman said she knew the reason why her nomination was rejected but she preferred not to reveal it. “The problem is whether this action is carried out by those who are not part of the government,” commented the 41-year-old on La7.
Boccia claims to have “signed the contract (for the appointment, ed.), as did the head of cabinet, on 7 August”. But then the procedure stops: “I – says the 41-year-old – guess on August 16th why I will be removed from the Ministry’s chats. I take steps to make the famous phone calls and record the one that is in the documents, where it is clear that the nomination actually existed.”
“I was on speakerphone with the minister – Boccia reports to Clean Square – while he was talking to his wife” when the latter “asked to tear up the nomination”. “I listened to that phone call because what was happening seemed surreal to me: a conversation between two strangers,” he adds.
“I was hurt by the fact that they called me a boaster thanks to the lack of clarity from the Ministry,” she continues, underlining that she feels “betrayed”.
During theinterview with Corrado FormigliBoccia also reveals: “Minister Sangiuliano made me read and forwarded the messages he received and sent to other politicians, ministers…” Also from Prime Minister Meloni? “Of many people who are part of the government, sometimes to get things done first he would send me the screenshots directly. It’s all in the phones they confiscated from me. It also happened that I held his phone and answered it for him when he couldn’t.”
“When Sangiuliano talks about an emotional relationship, we should ask him to account,” says the woman. “I am not the author of those sentences and in fact I should report him for violation of privacy. It talks about a toxic relationship, but from the photos and videos it is clear that this was not the case.”
In addition to the crime of threatening a member of a political body, the woman is also under investigation for aggravated assault for a wound caused to the head of the then minister during an argument: “I will clarify in the appropriate places”, replies Boccia, “I don’t talk about my private life and I don’t talk about feelings with him as long as there is an open investigation.”
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