Two priests commissioned robbery to cover up sexual abuse

Robbery to cover up sexual abuse by friars in church: excellent release

The man was locked up in the Poggioreale prison

Danilo Bottino, born in 2003, defended by the lawyer Luigi Poziello, is being investigated for aggravated robbery, attempted robbery, aggravated injuries and simulation of a crime, for having participated in a robbery commissioned by two priests working between Afragola and Piedimonte Matese against alleged victims, both men, of sexual abuse committed by them.

The aim was to steal cell phones containing videos and photos of sexual relations between the priests and the two people, but in the end the bandits managed to get hold of the phone of only one of the victims. Bottino, who was detained in Poggioreale, was granted house arrest at his home by the judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Naples North, who, at the request of the lawyer Luigi Poziello, mitigated the precautionary measure

The wiretaps that closed the circle

Last August, the priests Domenico Silvestro and Nicola Gildi were arrested, the first parish priest of the Basilica of Sant’Antonio di Padova in Afragola (Naples) and the second in service at the Convent “Santa Maria occorrevole” in Piedimonte Matese (Caserta) who, it emerged from the investigations, had paid 5 thousand euros to commission the robbery, the two material executors of the robbery Biagio Cirillo and Danilo Bottino, the man to whom the priests had turned to organize the raid, Domenico De Maso, and the one who physically identified the people to whom to entrust the task, Giuseppe Castaldo.

But already the day after the arrest, the Carabinieri of Afragola, coordinated by the Prosecutor's Office of Naples North (deputy Cesare Sirignano), had understood that more than one person had participated in the robbery, and so they subjected the arrested suspects and also some of their relatives to wiretapping. And the wiretaps allowed the investigators to close the circle of the investigation and identify the other three accomplices.

Giuseppe Cirillo, father of Biagio, was wiretapped while talking to a friend about the robbery in which his son took part, revealing the involvement of Giovanni Castaldo, believed to be close to the Capasso Camorra clan, operating in the municipalities of Marigliano and Mariglianella in the Neapolitan hinterland; in prison, however, Bottino, speaking with his partner, reveals who was with him in the car when he went to commit the robbery, and gives the names of Patrick, identified as Filippini, who was the one driving the car, Giovanni Castaldo who would have indicated the house where the two people to be robbed were, and Sergio Colalongo, who sat in the back seat with Castaldo.

The investigations also revealed that the suspects arrested in August would have received money from those who were outside as happens with the Camorra clans; with some exceptions however, since Giuseppe Cirillo, Biagio's father, would not have accepted the thousand euros, while Bottino in prison complains that one of the accomplices not arrested had not given him anything. "Now that I'm leaving he has to give me the 1000 euros he earned", he says.

Source