“It was the end of June, between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. I was with Piero when two carabinieri in civil dress arrived, Carlo and Luciano. They knocked on the door, I thought it was a friend of mine”.

 This is one of the passages of the Brazilian transsexual Nathalie’s questioning regarding the blackmail against Lazio’s former governor Marrazzo. Nathalie explained that she was in the apartment and suddenly Carlo Tagliente and Luciano Simeone arrived. “I told them that I didn’t have any clients but Carlo and Luciano said that I was with someone who they were very interested in”.

Nathalie described the scene that the two carabinieri found in her apartment. “Piero was in the room – continued Nathalie – he was wearing white underwear. They forced me to go out on the balcony. They talked for around twenty minutes. When I came back into the room, I heard that they were threatening Piero saying that if they dragged him to the police station, they would have ruined him because he was with a transsexual. I heard that one of the two wanted fifty thousand Euros, just like the other one, but Piero didn’t have all that money”.

The lawyer of Gianguerino Cafasso, the drug addict who died last December, was also questioned. His client in fact had allegedly handed over to the two carabinieri the video for the blackmail. But the lawyer denied this thesis. “Cafasso – said the lawyer to the investigator last 29th of October – said that the carabinieri have given him the video and he just had to sell it”.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute