A corruption investigation into municipal contracts awarded in Pesaro between 2014 and 2024 has implicated 24 suspects, including Matteo Ricci, the former mayor and current center-left candidate for President of the Marche region, sending shockwaves through the election campaign. Ricci, who declared himself calm and innocent of the accusations, was summoned to the Pesaro Prosecutor’s Office on July 30th to be questioned by prosecutors. The investigation rocked the MEP’s campaign, leading to silences and postponed events before he broke his hesitation in the afternoon, attending a campaign rally in Lido di Fermo to applause and continuing to speak as a candidate. All 24 suspects, including 16 accused of corruption, must be heard by magistrates by July. Ricci faces a single corruption charge. Among the others investigated are Massimiliano Santini, Ricci’s former temporary staffer for social media and events coordination, and Stefano Esposto, president of the cultural associations Opera Maestra and Stella Polare, which allegedly siphoned off contested contracts worth approximately €600,000.
The Prosecutor alleges an arrangement between Ricci, Santini, and Esposto, inducing Ricci, Santini, and other municipal officials to perform acts contrary to their official duties to secure contracts and contributions for the two associations and third parties. While Santini and Esposto allegedly received money and other assets from this scheme, the former mayor reportedly gained a “non-monetary benefit” through the “illegitimate realization of high-profile municipal works and public events,” boosting his image of administrative and political efficiency and thereby securing “significant benefit for the Municipality in terms of increased popularity and consensus” for himself. The investigation includes further charges against various suspects: ideological falsehood in public documents by officials and private individuals, undue receipt of public payments, compromising contractor selection procedures, and inducing the undue giving or promising of benefits. It also involves several former municipal officials who performed acts or signed documents, including Eros Giraldi, Loris Pascucci, Franco Arceci (Ricci’s former Chief of Staff), and Silvano Straccini, former president of the Fondazione Pescheria Centro Arti Visive, who resigned last March. Prosecutors significantly described the two cultural associations, which obtained many sub-threshold contracts, as lacking members beyond their founders, lacking suitable logistical structures for work or events, and lacking employees. They were allegedly “created ad hoc to win contracts/contributions for municipal works and events,” with Esposto formally representing them solely “to take possession of the money for himself and Santini.”