MAP Forum

The charges brought against the president and instructor of a rowing club suspended by the federation for two years and eight months because he allegedly groped a 13-year-old student are getting worse. The charges of aggravated and continuous sexual violence have now been joined by the crimes of soliciting minors and child pornography. The victims, moreover, have gone from one to two: two young girls over whom E.N., 43, from Brindisi, allegedly exercised his authority and influence as an instructor to convince them that there was nothing wrong with sending him selfies of themselves naked.

The investigation in Lecce

This is supported by the investigation closed by the public prosecutor of the Lecce Prosecutor's Office, Erika Masetti, who became the holder of the file after the transmission of the documents from the Brindisi Prosecutor's Office because the prosecutor Livia Orlando had identified the existence of the accusations of child pornography and solicitation of minors, of district jurisdiction of the pool of Salento magistrates. The photographs found on the cell phone and on the computer of the suspect after the seizure and the IT consultancy have rooted the investigation in Lecce and above all have aggravated the position of the suspect. Without prejudice to the presumption of innocence until the pronouncement of the final degree of judgment.

Three accusations

Therefore, now E.N. will have to defend himself from three accusations. The first is the one that started the investigation and is of aggravated and continuous sexual violence: according to what was ascertained by the investigators, the instructor allegedly molested the 14-year-old student during training with sudden and repeated groping during the exercises, despite the opposition and dissent openly expressed by the girl. The contested facts are placed between February and June of last year, at the beginning of the summer the girl's parents noticed that she was particularly upset.

She was no longer the same, and not just for a day, as if a veil of disturbance had clouded her cheerful and extroverted character. They did not give up, they did not rest on the assumption that it will pass. They wanted to get to the bottom of it and knowing that the real world of teenagers travels parallel to the virtual one on social media, one night they checked her smartphone. And they immediately understood the reason for the disturbance: they found messages sent by the instructor who in a flattering tone invited the girl to undress, take photos of herself and send them to him. The next step was the consultation with a criminal lawyer (the lawyer Anna Cavaliere who continues to assist them) and the complaint-report that started the criminal proceedings.

To crystallize the facts and circumstances, an evidentiary hearing was arranged to hear the girl, with the preliminary investigations judge Valerio Fracassi and the suspect defended by the lawyer Ferruccio Gianluca Palazzo. The transfer of the file to the Lecce Public Prosecutor's Office essentially confirmed the contents of the complaint and the outcome of the evidentiary hearing: the first accusation of child pornography concerns the photos that the student allegedly sent to her instructor but also the shots that the instructor allegedly took while she was training. For the other girl, there is still talk of flattery about her physical appearance to have her send photos in sexually explicit poses, but also videos with acts of autoeroticism. Finally, the suspect is also charged with soliciting minors for the content of the messages found on his devices: he allegedly flattered the 14-year-old student to induce her to send him his photos and to engage in sexual acts with her.

The girl - the investigation documents say - always kept him physically away. In light of the accusatory framework also supported by the evidentiary incident, the defense will now have to decide which strategy and which rite to choose in view of the possible trial.