Public prosecutors believe centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi continues to make payments to women who featured in his infamous "bunga, bunga" nights.
In the first “Rubygate” trial, which ran from April 2011 to July last year, Mr Berlusconi was first found guilty of the charges of abuse of office and of having sex with an underage girl, Moroccan belly dancer Karima “Ruby” El Mahroug. He was acquitted on appeal.
The current Rubygate investigation arises from the court’s reasoning at the time of the first judgement in June 2013, when the judges argued Mr Berlusconi might be guilty of perjury because of payments made to Ms El Mahroug and to the so-called Olgettine girls.
Investigators have used a “follow the money” line of inquiry in the latest investigation, dubbed Rubygate III. They searched the homes of 21 of the women on Tuesday and have analysed movements of large sums of money in their bank accounts.
The investigators argue several of the Olgettine women enjoy a lifestyle that bears no relation to their declared incomes. Barabara Guerra, for example, lives rent-free in a million-euro house near Milan that belongs to a real estate company controlled by Mr Berlusconi. The prosecutors also want to understand how Ms El Mahroug financed a recent extravagant spending spree.
Recently, the boyfriend of another of the women, Marysthell Polanco, was stopped at the Italo-Swiss border on his way to Switzerland with an undeclared €10,000 in cash.
During the first Rubygate case, the prosecution established Mr Berlusconi guaranteed a monthly stipend of €2,500 or more to the women.
If this case comes to court, the basic prosecution line is already clear. The public prosecutors will argue Mr Berlusconi paid and continues to pay the Olgettine women and others in return for their false testimonies in the Rubygate I trial. In that trial, Ms El Mahroug said that she had never had sex with Mr Berlusconi. Many of the women at the “bunga bunga” evenings argued they had been “elegant dinner parties” with a burlesque element rather than orgies, as argued by the prosecution.
Mr Berlusconi is one of 45 people, also including his senior defence lawyers Nicolá Ghedini and Piero Longo, under investigation on perjury-related charges.
A decision on whether Rubygate III should come to trial will be taken only after the formal investigation closes, probably early next month.
In the meantime, Mr Berlusconi continues to feature indirectly in another court case in Bari in which businessman Gianpaolo Tarantini and six other people are charged with having promoted prostitution because, between 2008 and 2009, they arranged for 26 young women to attend parties in various Berlusconi residences.
Giulia Mascellino, one of those women who attended the parties, told the Bari court two weeks ago: "We all knew that the situation at those dinners was a bit ambiguous and that if someone was willing to stay behind after dinner and have sex with prime minister Berlusconi, then they would be paid more . . ."