“Disappointed, justice does not exist”

It is 5.30pm on January 10th, on the table of a bar in Milan there are two glasses of a cold drink. They seal a pact between the writer, a journalist, and Caterina, one of the victims who took a civil action against the psychosect of the Beastsso called by the Novara police who carried out the investigations from 2018 to 2020. A few hours earlier there was the sentence, pronounced by the President of the Court of Assizes Gianfranco Pezone, which establishes that between and 26 defendants to the trial there is only a six-year sentence for gang sexual assaultwhich occurred in 2012, for Barbara Magnani and that the crime of criminal association with the aim of committing sexual abuse was committed until 2010 and therefore time-barred.

We will have to wait for the reasons, but it is possible that the criminal association was considered active until when Gianni Maria Guidileader of the “sect of the Beasts”, was in good health. From 2010 onwards the conditions of the herbalistfounder of the Quintessenzia laboratory, have in fact worsened with a slow progression, until his death on March 15, 2023, a few days after the start of the courtroom hearing of the trial. In the preliminary phase, inability to stand trial was requested and obtained for him, which should be confirmed every six months.

“I’m very disappointed. I wonder if the appeal will be useful, because it would mean for me to relive those sufferings“, says Caterina with a clear mind. The moment the words of the sentence were pronounced by the president “in a cold way, without even looking up from the paper“, Caterina hugged Giulia, her friend and another offended person who started the investigation. A hug that lasted 20 minutes, through tears.

“I am very disappointed, justice does not exist“: these are the first words spoken by Giulia, turning her back on journalists, on the world, closing herself in. It is as if she were the opposite of Gisele Pelicot, the woman who became a symbol in France for having spoken about the violence suffered by her husband. His face appeared on all the front pages of French and world newspapers, while Giulia’s was hidden in her hands, full of tears, with her makeup melting.

In his case the crimes of sexual violence have been time-barred, that is, they have “expired”. And indeed, the sentence says: “The criminal action should not have been initiated as the crime was extinguished by statute of limitations“. But how can they expire through the judicial system, and persist in the heart of the offended person? “I’m disappointed – says Giulia again -. My future will never be able to untie the years I lived in the sect“. The point, however, is precisely this, it is as if there were no crimes in the code that could describe what happened in those years in which Gianni Maria Guidi was head of the association and used people to derive sexual pleasure from them, including children, Giulia included, Caterina included.

There is no cult crime, the crime of plagiarism no longer exists. The public prosecutor Silvia Baglivo had also requested the aggravating circumstance of enslavement for the criminal association, but it was not recognized by the court. While as required, criminal association was recognized: a subtle but fundamental distinction. The organization and the sect therefore existed, even if for the crimes alleged from 2010 (criminal association and gang sexual violence) onwards there were acquittals and only one conviction for gang sexual violence.

“Nine of the accused were acquitted for not having committed the crime. The statute of limitations applies only to some of them”one of the defense lawyers Massimo Del Confetto was keen to point out. There are 21 defendants acquitted for the crimes of criminal association and gang sexual violence up to 2010. Barbara Magnani herself was acquitted of criminal association, but convicted of gang sexual violence which occurred in 2012.

On the aspect of the prescription, prosecutor Baglivo said that “it is important that there was a conviction for gang sexual violence. The crimes were recognized even if they were prescribed, excluding enslavement. However, there is a problem: at the Central Operational Service of the State Police in Rome there is an anti-cult school“. On the exclusion of the aggravating circumstance of enslavement he explained that this “it speaks of the state of continuous subjection, a sexual exploitation that in our opinion existed here“.

Source: Olga Mascolo

In any case, for these episodes “there is no legal framework that is precisely on this point – confirms the chief prosecutor Giuseppe Ferrando – it’s between plagiarism and slavery, it’s a borderline situation. There are no precedents”. There is also a void for the lawyer Marco Marzari of Cesap (Psychological Abuse Centre), civil party in the trial: “Since the Corsican legislature, Cesap has been fighting together with other associations for the crime of sect, or criminal association organized for sectarian purposes, to be standardized. Thanks go to the prosecutor of Novara who supported a courageous and, in our opinion, completely founded accusation until the end.“. “Without an adequate law no one will get justice”wrote Lorita Tinelli, an expert on cults.

It is the tears and the embrace between the offended people that make the moment in which the sentence is pronounced even more dramatic: there are acquittals, a single 6-year sentence, the statute of limitations that weighs like a boulder on Caterina, Marta, Giulia . There is a great sense of impotence and bitterness of the prosecutor Baglivo on Milanese investigationwhich emerged thanks to the complaint of a person who left the “sect” in which the violence against Giulia when she was a child was reported. Unfortunately, however, the Milanese investigation ended with a dismissal because no evidence was found at the time of the violence against minors that allegedly occurred in the 1990s, and in 2010 Giulia was already an adult woman.

Then there is another point. The trial, which began on March 24, 2023, was characterized by a climate of hostility towards the press: annoyance with cameras, threats, recklessness, trespassing on roles. In one of the latest hearings it was said that the defendants were being lynched by the media, and the feeling is that it was exactly the opposite, with abundant respect for the presumption of innocence, and very little sensitivity for the freedom of the press, which was fundamental to conveying the gaps in jurisprudence and injustices. Because never more than in this case does it seem fundamental to point out that if Giulia, Caterina and the other victims do not get justice, it is probably because there is something that isn’t working, beyond the Doctor’s death: perhaps abuse for minors should not be prescribed, perhaps the sect should somehow be included in our penal system.

Because even between absolution and prescription there is a very different boundary: and it lies in the future life. Can the psychologists who, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, recruited the Doctor’s victims (until 2010) continue to practice their profession? Even if the crime is extinguished? Even if the crime cannot be framed correctly? Although “There are no precedents” as she said
Baglivo after the sentence? This is a fundamental question that society must ask itself.

Throughout the trial the defendants always all arrived together and all left together. Sometimes they would reunite later at the Doctor’s house on Cerano beach, even though it was already there
died. Barbara Magnani lived in that house, the only one convicted and his right-hand man in the management of the group. During the sentence, however, the defendants were not present except for one, for whom the prosecutor had nevertheless requested the statute of limitations: “Unlike the others, I have come to show you that we are not a sect and everyone thinks for themselves“.

Of the 26 defendants, however, only two have spoken to us over the years. One of them, not directly involved in the crimes of sexual violence, but in the association, said in one of the latest hearings: “We are honest people who have not committed any crime. There is nothing, there is no criminal association: all our accounts are in the clear. I won’t talk about what is prescribed, we have no reason to doubt what Giulia says (the violence on the part of the Doctor, ed.), but I didn’t know anything about it because the sect doesn’t exist. The Doctor was the best employer“.

Marta reported, involving the cousin who was accusedCaterina reported her older sister who was accused. Giulia reported it, telling how it had been
brought into the “sect” by her aunt, left the group and now in London. It was Giulia who started the 2018 investigation, supported by her psychologist, the “Non una di meno” association and her lawyer Silvia Calzolaro who helped her draw up a complete complaint. Other girls then filed civil claims. Giulia contacted on the phone says: “Right now I’m having a hard time thinking about the court’s decision. I have too much bitterness. Together with my lawyer we wait to read the reasons for the sentence” which will arrive by April 10th. Returning to the bar table with Caterina in Milan, the day of the first instance sentence: the pact, for her, is not to feel ashamed, and for everyone to consider the sentence not a point of arrival , but at the beginning.