MBELDOG BLOG

A showgirl who claims that she and other women were paid to attend Silvio Berlusconi’s private parties said yesterday that she had pictures showing her with the Italian Prime Minister in his bedroom.

Patrizia D’Addario, a former model and escort girl, said that she had given prosecutors audio tapes but also had secretly recorded video footage of her encounters in the Prime Minister’s Rome residence.

Ms D’Addario, 42, who was yesterday described by a senior government figure as a high-class prostitute, said that the footage showed her standing in front of a mirror. A bedroom with a framed photograph of Veronica Lario, Mr Berlusconi’s estranged wife, was in view. She said she had made the recordings “so that nobody could deny I had been there”.

Ms Lario sued for divorce after Mr Berlusconi attended the 18th birthday party in Naples of Noemi Letizia, an aspiring model. She accuses her husband of “frequenting minors”.

Police said they were checking Ms D’Addario’s footage to ensure that the rooms shown were in the Prime Minister’s Palazzo Grazioli and that the voice on her tapes was Mr Berlusconi’s.

Three other women who claim that they were paid to attend Mr Berlusconi’s parties have also been interviewed by prosecutors [I'd be curious to know how much they actually got, I suspect not much; and how much really went to their "pimp"/handler]. Mr Berlusconi, 72, who is not himself under investigation, has dismissed the allegations as falsehoods. He is said to have told aides that he does not remember Ms D’Addario.

Prosecutors have drawn up a list of more women they wish to interview, as well as others who may have had a role. These include local politicians who put up Ms D’Addario as a candidate in the European and municipal elections on June 6-7 on behalf of the People of Liberty, Mr Berlusconi’s party, and aides to Giampaolo Tarantini, the Bari businessman under investigation for allegedly supplying women for Mr Berlusconi’s parties.

The scandal of “paid women” came to light during a three-month police inquiry into Mr Tarantini, 35, and his brother Claudio, 40, over alleged corruption involving contracts for hospital equipment.

Alfredo Mantovano, the Deputy Interior Minister, said that the latest revelations were fabricated by plotters trying to bring down Mr Berlusconi.

Ms D’Addario, a single mother with a 13-year-old daughter, is a former model who has also worked as a local television showgirl. She claims she has performed in America with the illusionist David Copperfield.

According to Italian reports, police records showed she had advertised her services in Bari newspapers as an escort. They said that two years ago she had gone to police after a prostitute was murdered, saying that she feared for her life, and denounced her then partner as a pimp [kitten handler]. The man was arrested and convicted but released under an amnesty, reports said.

In further extracts from her interview yesterday in Corriere della Sera, Ms D’Addario said that she had never been asked to go to Prime Minister’s Sardinian villa, although she claimed that other women had been paid to do so. “Giampaolo told me there was a possibility of a holiday abroad — I think it was Bermuda.” Mr Berlusconi owns a villa on Bermuda.Ms D’Addario said that she had twice been to Palazzo Grazioli, first in October last year when she had been paid ¤1,000, half the agreed sum, because she had not stayed the night. A second time in November she had stayed the night but had not been paid. She said she and other women had been taken from a hotel to the house in cars with darkened windows. They had been told to “dress elegantly, with not too much make-up”.

[Times article pasted from here, see previous post on this; top kitten image courtesy of Daily Mail's coverage + some additional info from it pasted below, this post will probably be edited + more images if/when they surface]

Prosecutors in her home town of Bari are investigating two brothers, Giampaolo and Claudio Tarantini, over corruption claims and intercepted telephone calls in which they allegedly talk about arranging girls for Berlusconi parties [see the previous post where another handler 'Mr Mora' was doing the same thing; supplying drugs and kittens/sex-slaves for "elite" parties].

They said Mr Berlusconi, 73, was not under investigation. The French news magazine L’Express revealed the comments made by Mr Chirac while on an official visit to Italy several years ago.

It said he was hosted at Mr Berlusconi’s villa and noticed a pile of porn magazines. He asked Mr Berlusconi why they were lying around.

The Italian premier is said to have replied: ‘I’ve had her, and this one, and I’ve had that one too.’ [porn stars are often really programmed kittens used by the ruling class]

Mr Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario, 52 is divorcing him and said she was ‘fed up of him associating with minors’.