Ricci, warrant notice to the Marche centre-left candidate for governor

The former mayor of Pesaro Matteo Ricci, centre-left candidate for president of the Marche Region and MEP for the Democratic Party, has received a notice of investigation into alleged irregularities in the Pesaro Municipality's entrusting of contracts in the past legislature when he was first citizen. The announcement was made by Ricci himself. In a video posted on social media, Ricci says he is 'surprised', 'bitter', but 'serene' and 'extraneous to the facts'. The investigation is that of 'Affidopoli', which exploded a year ago. At the centre were the assignments of murals, installations and events in the city of Pesaro to associations, at the time when Ricci was mayor (until June 2024).

"I have a communication to give you. Surprisingly, this morning I received a notice of guarantee. A notice of guarantee was delivered to me on the age-old affair of the assignments, the murals, the parties, the Valentino Rossi helmet that has been in the press for a year now. I am surprised because in my life, in 15 years of administration, I have never dealt with public assignments, with works. I have always blindly trusted my managers, my collaborators, as I have done in this case,' he says in the video with the document in hand. "We are in fact talking about works that have all been carried out, about parties that have been successful, and therefore I have never had any kind of different or strange report regarding the execution of works. I have been repeating this for months. Obviously I will also repeat it to the prosecutor, whom I hope to see as soon as possible'.

'I have never been involved in public works contracts, I have always trusted my managers and collaborators blindly,' he explains. The prosecutors accuse him, he reports, of having received not pecuniary benefits but 'political consensus'. "Never,' Ricci says, 'had I had any kind of report on the execution of the works. I hope to see the prosecutor as soon as possible. Among other things, the accusation is quite curious because it says that I would not have obtained any pecuniary benefit but that I would have obtained a benefit in terms of political consensus. And they say something that I deny: that I knew these associations, but I never dealt with them directly.

'I am calm on the merits, I have discussed it with my lawyer, but I am also very bitter and angry. This,' Ricci emphasises, 'comes the day after the elections were called, after a year of investigations. As always I am confident in the work of the judiciary, we will immediately dismantle these accusations. When a mayor governs he has many collaborators, and if a collaborator eventually makes a mistake, the mayor is the injured party because the trust given is betrayed. On the merits, I am completely extraneous to the facts and I am convinced that I will clarify this soon'.