Barbara Montereale, an Italian hostess, said that the Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, gave her 10,000 euros after she attended one of his parties
He has made no secret of his love of women but the sex scandal surrounding Silvio Berlusconi is now threatening to topple him, as more claims emerge of the systematic recruitment of young women paid to attend private parties at his homes in Rome and Sardinia.
Berlusconi was just reelected after weathering a sex scandal with a young lingerie model and another one in which naked people were spotted lounging around his villa. His wife has asked for a divorce and a Vatican cardinal has publicly criticized the prime minister. Opponents within his own party would like to see him replaced.
With weeks to go before he hosts the G8 summit the Italian Prime Minister, 72, is facing new allegations. A Bari escort girl says that she has recorded footage of herself in the billionaire’s bedroom. Now another woman has come forward, this time claiming that she was paid to attend the Prime Minister’s private parties after going through a hostess service, allegedly operated by a local businessman.
In an interview with The Times Barbara Montereale said that Mr Berlusconi gave her €10,000 (£8,500) “as a present” after attending one of his parties at Villa Certosa. She also claims to have received an attendance fee of €1,000, paid by his alleged fixer, Giampaolo Tarantini. Apparently a 'fixer' is an Italian word for pimp.
Miss Montereale, 23, also claimed that Patrizia D’Addario, the escort girl at the center of the scandal, told her she had had sex with Mr Berlusconi.
Speaking from her home in Modugno, Bari, Miss Montereale said she first met Mr Berlusconi when she attended a dinner at the Berlusconi residence in Rome. She was among three women, including Ms D’Addario and Lucia Rossini, another woman from Bari who has also been questioned by prosecutors.
They had been invited and introduced to the Prime Minister, she said, by Mr Tarantini, a businessman from Bari, who is under investigation for corruption and pimping.
“Everyone at the dinner knew Patrizia was an escort,” she said. “I was supposed to be sharing a room with Patrizia at the hotel that night. I slept there alone. When she came back at 8am she told me she had slept with him [Berlusconi] but that he hadn’t paid her because she had asked for a favor instead.”
That favor is alleged to have been help pushing through a building project which had stalled.
“My nickname is long thighs. I am not an escort. I am an image girl, a hostess. Appearing at nightclubs, parties, chatting with clients,” Miss Montereale said.
Asked why the women were invited to dinner, she said: “We were not there because we were all friends. That first time I wasn’t paid, as I went to accompany Patrizia, but after meeting Giampaolo we agreed that for the next parties he would pay me as a hostess. We agreed €1,000, per party, per dinner.”
Mr Tarantini has denied the allegations and publicly apologized to the Prime Minister for having caused “any involuntary damage”. Mr Berlusconi has dismissed the allegations as part of a smear campaign. He has used the smear campaign excuse on several occasions in the past.
Mr Tarantini appeared to “work for the Premier”, Miss Montereale told The Times. “It seemed that Giampaolo was in charge of finding girls to make the whole thing more pleasant for Silvio. He paid us, paid me, with his own money, to please him [Berlusconi].
She is also the first to have admitted a part in the alleged recruitment of young women for the Prime Minister’s parties. Miss Montereale claims to have been invited to Villa Certosa in Sardinia a few weeks after the dinner in Rome.
It was there that she said Mr Berlusconi gave her two envelopes, each containing €5,000, “as a present”, after she told him of her money worries. She also shows fistfuls of butterfly necklaces and bracelets, which it is widely known Mr Berlusconi likes to lavish on female guests who visit him in Sardinia. She named Licia Ronzulli, one of the women Mr Berlusconi proposed as candidates for the European elections, as the “manager” who organizes hostesses’ arrival in Sardinia.
“She was like a secretary. She would say, Barbara you go in that room, to another girl, we’ll put you in that room. She organized the airline tickets.”
Source: Times of London
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