Monthly Archives: July 2001

Silver Streaker Scam

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Roman judges became suspicious after realizing over half the 650 driving licenses suspended for excessive speeding last year belonged to folks over 60 years old. Jaded traffic cops soon cleared up the mystery: these “silver streakers” are, in reality,taking the heat for young relatives.Italy’s strict privacy law permits electronic cameras to snag speeders from the back only, so while it’s improbable Granny was doing 90 in town on a Ducati, it’s impossible to prove otherwise. Sleuthing zoomata staff made three whole phone calls before finding a successful “bait & switch.” Our deep throat of traffic tickets told us: “I was going over 50 mph in a 40 mph zone while driving my dad’s car during the holidays,” he said.. “So I asked my mom, who has a perfect driving record, to say she did it. In the photo, you can just make out that someone’s driving the car and nothing else.” Another case of “mamma’s boy” makes good? “No way. I take responsibility for important things, but this was a case of common sense.”

Related resources:
www.quattroruote.it
Italy’s most popular motoring mag on recent driving reforms: the “point” system for driving infractions, a mini-license for young scooter drivers -and the arrival of vanity license plates.

Italy by Numers: Women Duke it Out

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31 years taken to modify Italy’s law against women boxers
1,000 professional female boxers, Finland
400 professional female boxers, France
10 number of rounds in women’s matches
1 superstar Italian female boxer

Katia Bellillo, former minister for equal opportunity noted for having uppercut Alessandra Mussolini on TV, considers her battle won. Starting this week, Italian women will be allowed to duke it out professionally. Bellillo, who took up boxing four months ago, told news agency ANSA: “It’s one less form of discrimination, it’s absurd a law prohibited women from boxing.” Italy’s female boxing culture has a way to go: so far it boasts only one recognized athlete of professional stature, Sicilian Francesca Lupo. The change in law means Lupo will likely represent Italy in the upcoming European Women’s Boxing Championship in April.
*Source: Italian Boxing Assoc., FPI (Federazione Pugilistica Italiana)
www.fpi.it
www.womanaffairs.org/cultura/boxe.html
A profile of Francesca Lupo

Italy by Numbers: English as New Latin

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514 million English speakers
62 million Italian speakers
50,000 (circa) students of Italian worldwide
93 Italian cultural institutes, worldwide

“English, one of the most widely-spoken languages, will form the building blocks for a universal idiom,” was the hypothesis made recently by Peter Schneider in daily Corriere della Sera commenting on “European Year of Languages” conferences held by the EU.
Italys Accademia della Crusca, Europes oldest linguistic watchdog, not only agreed with the “English as the New Latin” concept but may add to the Italian vocabulary with words derived from English.
President Francesco Sabatini, at work revising the Academys prestigious dictionary of the Italian language, told the newspaper linguists are considering adding “Italianized” words to keep up with commonly-used English terms like “devolution” and “performance.”
An odd undertaking for the Academy, founded in 1583, whose name (“crusca” means chaff), implies keeping the Italian language pure. http://ovisun199.csovi.fi.cnr.it/crusca/ Official site of the Accademia unfortunately, they’re too busy deciding the fate of the Italian language to update it very often.

Enrico Forti: Killer or Victim?

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UPDATE MAY 16, 2024
Forti was released May 15 (public record) and is currently awaiting extradition to Italy (per news wire ANSA.)

Entrepreneur Enrico Forti says he owes a life sentence in a Florida jail to being Italian. “If I were Anglo-Saxon I would’ve never seen the inside of a courtroom,” he told Italian daily La Repubblica. “Here they seem to think a successful Italian is necessarily a member of the Mafia.”

Forti, whose friends call him “Chico,” was convicted of murdering real-estate mogul Anthony “Dale” Pike in Miami on February 16, 1998. Forti, ex-windsurf champ and game show contestant from Trento, was the last person to see Pike alive. In a panic, he told police he hadn’t seen Pike despite the fact the two were at odds over a deal Forti had made with Pike’s father. The misstep cost Forti dearly–he eventually told the truth, was convicted for fraud in the hotel deal, acquitted– and then charged with murder in May 2000.

Friends and family in Italy have launched a media blitz to drum up funds for a retrial. Forti, who pleaded not guilty to the shooting death, has been interviewed on radio programs, newspapers, been the benefactor of a windsurf tournament and launched a web site which tells the story from his point of view.His lawyers, who say evidence was circumstantial, hope at the very least to have the life sentence (without possibility of parole) commuted to give Forti, 42, the possibility of serving time in Italy.

The story contains any number of elements worthy of a mystery novel. In 1997, Forti bought the houseboat where the murderer of Gianni Versace, Andrew Cunanan, was found dead. Forti planned to produce a TV documentary on whether Cunanan had committed suicide (as police maintained) or whether he was killed. The houseboat was damaged and eventually destroyed because it was a safety hazard–Forti maintains it was destroyed as a cover up. “You’re the Italian who said the Miami police are corrupt?” Forti recounted. “Now you’ll pay.”

Add to the scene US detective Frank Monte, who sustains Forti was a “troubleshooter” for Versace’s dealings with difficult siblings Santo and Donatella. Monte ascribes his insider knowledge to an investigation he carried out for Versace in 1996 concerning the death of a family associate. As for the murder, police say Pike came to Miami to confront Forti about the sale of a hotel in Ibiza, Spain that the Italian had negotiated with his elderly father. When police questioned Forti, he said Pike never arrived in Miami.

Later he told police he left Pike at a restaurant. After a complicated, month-long trial with an intricate weave of documents and satellite testimony from Spain, Forti was found guilty of first-degree murder in June of 2000.Hard to tell where the truth lies–but Forti’s case seems destined to become another crusade against the US justice system, which Italians deem inhumane and often overly harsh.

After years of battle and public pressure, Italian Silvia Baraldini was granted the right to serve the rest of her sentence in a Roman jail in 1999. For Italians, Baraldini was unjustly jailed for ideological reasons; for US authorities she was a dangerous terrorist. She served 19 years of a 43-year sentence to date, but the controversy continues. Baraldini was granted house arrest by Italian authorities in the spring of 2001 to undergo treatment for breast cancer– despite the seriousness of her illness, the US government insists that she be returned to prison by September.

Related resources:
www.chicoforti.com
“One Chance for Chico” official site, in English & Italian.

www.justice-for-silvia.org
Updates on the Baraldini case. In English.