Acquitted, in ordinary proceedings, the well-known builder from Rome, […], legal representative of […] S.r.l., of the offense under art. 480 of the criminal code, “ideological falsehood committed by a public official in certificates […] administrative,” because the act does not constitute a crime.

According to the accusation, the defendant would have submitted to the Lazio Region a false technical consultation (hereinafter “c.t.u.”) in order to obtain the landscape clearance necessary for the execution of safety works (collection tank for wastewater) in a neighboring condominium, for which he had been condemned by the civil court in an urgent proceeding initiated by that condominium.

The act was deemed false because, although effectively drafted by the c.t.u., a civil engineer, in the proceeding where the builder had been declared unsuccessful, it was submitted without the author’s authorization. The c.t.u., upon learning of the submission of his act, disowned the document, stating that the c.t.u. had been altered in the heading and mutilated in essential parts; he had therefore joined the prosecution as a civil party in the criminal trial against the builder, endorsing the request for conviction made by the prosecution.

The defense demonstrated that the defendant had only deposited a part of the technical consultation, moreover, lacking the final project, and therefore genetically unsuitable for obtaining landscape permission.

The entrepreneur, in essence, had merely inserted the name of […] S.r.l. as the client and that of the c.t.u. as the “designer” on the title page of the document. The defense easily dismantled the accusation by asserting that the defendant’s conduct was not motivated by the intention to alter the truth through a false representation of reality but by the intent to comply with the prescriptions of the civil court.

Criminal Court of Rome, Section IV, public hearing on March 17, 2022, file of the public prosecutor n. 12843/2016 R.G.N.R and n. 19156/2019 R.G. DIB.