Fise, a mother's complaint: "He allowed a pedophile to work with minors. It must be commissioned”

[Artaxerxes II]

https://www.dire.it/02-09-2024/1075648- ... issariata/

The appeal to Minister Abodi: "There should be a third party body on these cases". The president of Fise, Di Paola, speaks of facts that "should never happen in a sports community" and explains that, once expelled, the guilty parties are outside the jurisdiction of the federation.

ROME – ‘We, abused children, laid bare before judges and psychologists; our tormentor free to be an instructor 100 meters from our home, hidden and protected by associations and by the FISE (Italian Federation of Equestrian Sports), a ‘criminal who has navigated in the shadows. I am angry, but I have a duty to continue on the front line this war against the rotten for me, for my brother Giacomo who, at 34 years old, because of this enormous weight on his shoulders, did not make it’. This is the painful video testimony of Giovanni Fornasier, a victim when he was a child of pedophilia by the riding instructor, Daniele known as ‘Dani’ who worked in a riding club in the province of Biella.

Ordinary justice has run its course with a sentence of conviction of the pedophile confirmed by the Supreme Court, not yet the sports one, this is the complaint brought at a press conference at Dire today by the mother of the two brothers, Lorella Tempia, and for this ‘inertia’ of the FISE, as the ‘courageous mother’ defined it, she has asked for the Federation to be placed under special administration which will elect the new national president shortly.

The incumbent president, Marco Di Paola, was invited to participate, but was absent. The family of the two abused brothers has asked him over the years for a clear commitment to ensure that the pedophile was not put in a position to approach other kids. This has not happened so far, as emerged from the evidence presented at the press conference, except for the referral of 8 people involved that should arrive today, after years. To denounce all this and promote 'clean sport', the Giacomo Fornasier aps association was born, of which Lorella Tempia is president.

‘My son died in November 2023. I don’t know what I will be able to achieve after years, but I won’t stop. My children were not supported and neither were we as a family: I asked myself many questions about why Di Paola didn’t come today. How can someone who runs a Federation not support parents who reach a definitive final sentence? Why don’t you do anything about this pedophile?’, began mother Lorella, recalling the death of her son Giacomo who lost his life due to the trauma he suffered together with his brother. ‘My children suffered violence from 2002 to 2008 and in 2018 there was the definitive sentence of conviction confirmed by the Supreme Court of 4 years and 6 months with a lifelong ban from all schools. Fise should have protected and ensured that this individual did not work with minors and instead this never happened. The Giacomo Fornasier Aps association was born for this purpose of prevention and change. FISE is not responsible for the violence, but it is for having made him work again. For this reason, with my lawyers, I decided to ask for the receivership. I started the reports in 2017 and ended in 2023 - said mother Lorella who over the years also played the role of 'investigator' discovering that the pedophile instructor continued to work, to keep horses, to compete, to give theoretical lessons at home, even to join (we'll see how, ed.) - President Di Paola used me for advertising purposes, as a courageous mother, but in fact there was inertia and in the end he even reported me for harassment. The FISE with collusions allowed the pedophile to work, I feel like I was being mocked. I will not stop and with my lawyers I am filing a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office to clarify things.'

The news is that today 8 people involved in the Fornasier brothers' affair will be officially reported. 'Why only today?' asked mother Lorella. 'Mine is a small center, everyone knows. The pedophile – the club was then called ‘Asd Massarenese’ – opened another ASD (Amateur Sports Associations) with front men, they helped him. In November 2022 I went to a memorial held at the equestrian center and he was the speaker. I heard about a lesson he was going to give and I notified President Di Paola who said he would send the police. Instead, no one showed up for the lesson: everyone had been warned not to go. Today it’s too late,’ she declared again at the conference.

After the conviction, this is the complaint presented in detail by the secretary of the Giacomo Fornasier association, Roberta Giovannini, the FISE would not have implemented surveillance and prevention tools on the case and on the interdiction of the pedophile instructor.

‘At the end of 2022 - explains Giannini leafing through a copious dossier of pages and pages integrated with videos and photos that are in the files - we discover that the pedophile works in Fise and has even re-registered as a horse owner. The lawyers report it and the General Secretary of the FISE speaks of a simple flaw in the IT system that did not recognize the tax code’. But that is not all. ‘We find horses registered in the ASD where the pedophile was president: the ASD no longer existed even at the Revenue Agency but the horses renewed their membership and participated in competitions. How did the Federation record this proceeds?’, asked the secretary of the association who also clarified the passage of mediation. ‘The FISE has been invited to mediation for compensation for damages suffered by the Fornasier brothers. President Di Paola made a resolution to join and the board ratified it, but at the Primavera agency the former prosecutor, legal delegate of the FISE, informed that the federation was not interested in mediating: I have here the report of non-adherence to the mediation of November 15, 2023. Why did Di Paola also say with press releases and interviews that the lady refused mediation? He spoke of a high amount, but compensation is done with reference tables and expert reports’.

‘The CONI has asked the federal prosecutor to open proceedings on the 8 people acquitted 8 years ago and today at 4 pm there is a hearing in the federal court… 8 years ago acquitted and today reported… what does it depend on?’, asked Giannini again, recalling the imminent elections of September 9.

The famous compensation requested for the Fornasier brothers was weighed on the basis of an expert report drawn up by psychiatrist Maria Stella Grazioli, also part of the association. ‘There were facts, significant ascertained damage,’ the specialist recalled, recalling the incontrovertible sentence in the criminal case. ‘I delivered the expert report a few months before Giacomo’s death,’ which came in the ‘gigantic despair of the trauma and of an environment – she wanted to underline it – in which your executioner is protected.’

The Fornasier case has therefore shaken the Federation elections and the mandate of the incumbent president at the end of his term. An ‘inert’ attitude of the Federation on confirmed cases of paedophilia was also denounced, in the same press conference, by the federal instructor Lucilla Montanari: ‘I reported a disbarred person who continued to work and I lost my job’. And again the video testimony of another mother, Michela Zambelli, whose daughter, now a teenager, was abused at 9 years old, always in an equestrian centre in Lombardy. ‘I trusted De Paola, but the Fise never intervened. The paedophile was disbarred after 4-5 years and after my complaint, 6 months later – she said in the audio message – they asked to question my daughter and another minor (there were 7 involved) with the instructor and the president of the club. The president of the Fise downplayed and underestimated. In the meantime, the pedophile was taking part in the competitions and I was told not to take part and to keep the matter ‘inter nos’. That club had to be closed and the members instead produced a letter to protect the pedophile’.

Again, the secretary of the Giacomo Fornasier association, Roberta Giovannini, recalled the numbers that emerged in the report of the CONI Prosecutor’s Office on the proceedings for pedophilia and abuse from 2014 to 2023, which shows that ‘in percentage terms by number of members, FISE is first for abuse (second in absolute terms to football, ed.)’, as she underlined. A figure that denotes a specific alarm in the equestrian sports environment. It is precisely on this attitude of the Federation that Clara Campese and Duccio Bartalucci, candidates for the presidency in the upcoming elections, spoke at a press conference, who have chosen to make a clear commitment and to outline a turning point.

Duccio Bartalucci sent a message to Minister Abodi: ‘We will make a proposal – he announced – for a third party body on these cases, as happens in the United States. We will not turn away, we will be close to Lorella in this horrifying affair. If the CONI Attorney General’s Office had to intervene due to the Federation’s inertia, we cannot allow this drift’.

Clara Campese recalled the values of sport and her commitment in this direction: ‘A clean sport must promote ethically correct examples and models of social life. As FISE Veneto, when I too received reports of irregularities, I responded with my conscience and filed a report with the justice bodies in Rome. It is a question of morality and courage. We must not be afraid to intervene’.

Campese recalled when the Fornasier case was presented to the Consulta. ‘Di Palma carried me in the palm of his hand at the time, I was the courageous mother’, recalled Mrs. Lorella Tempia. Before the whole attitude of the FISE came to light up to the last event: 'After my request for a commissioner, all the affiliation and membership cards attributable to the pedophile, free until a few days before, have been blocked since 2019. This evidence was also delivered to President Malagò', he specified.

The courageous mother who felt exploited when she discovered that sports justice and the FISE had done much less than the ordinary one does not give up: 'I owe it to my children and to all the families who approach equestrian sports unaware of what is happening': this is her promise.

"First of all, I am sorry that I was not invited to participate in this event because I would certainly have brought the testimony of the Federation. The story experienced by the Fornasier family is a personal tragedy and a very ugly page, not of sport and in particular of equestrian sport, but of common life. It represents what should never happen not only in a sports community, but in any other community. These meetings are also important opportunities to raise awareness and prevent. When Justice intervenes, we have all already lost because the fact has happened. We need to intervene to change the culture and implement actions that serve to prevent and, in this, the Federations are doing a lot. We are aware that the instructors are masters of sport, but also of life. This responsibility is deeply felt by all our technical staff and federal managers. And everyone takes maximum care or attention to cultivating and defending these fundamental moral values. If bad apples were to happen, as unfortunately happens, the repressive activity is very severe with the expulsion of the people involved”. This is how the response of the president of the Fise, Marco Di Paola, began regarding the press conference that took place this morning at Dire promoted by the Giacomo Fornasier aps association on the case of the brothers abused by a Fise instructor convicted of pedophilia.

Di Paola entrusted a press release with “two clarifications that have characterized the Fornasier affair. Trials must be held in courtrooms with due time and guarantees. And as far as sports justice is concerned, the guilty parties, once expelled, are outside the jurisdiction of the Federation. And therefore the Federation can no longer control these people. What we can do instead is monitor and impose ethics and morals on our technical staff. I remember that I was the president who in the Coni Council proposed and obtained that any person expelled for harassment be expelled from any other federation and - he concluded - we established with the European Parliament and the main institutions, including Rai, the European day against harassment so that every 25 February we return to talking and raising awareness on these issues".