Attacked after an exchange of persons remains in an irreversible coma: 20 years to the author of the beating

Twenty years and 4 months in prison: this is the sentence imposed today by the court of Crotone on Nicolò Passalacqua, 23 years old, who on August 11, 2022 reduced to death the young Bolognese Davide Ferrerio, 21 years old, attacked after being mistaken for another person and who since that day has been in a state of irreversible coma. The events took place in the evening, in a square in Crotone, where Ferrerio was on vacation with his family.

The trial took place with the abbreviated rite. Passalacqua was found responsible for the crime of attempted aggravated murder aggravated by futile and abject motives and the victim's handicapped defense.

The gup went beyond the request of the public prosecutor Pasquale Festa who had urged Passalacqua to be sentenced to 20 years in prison, a sentence to be served by a third because of the abbreviated rite with which the trial was celebrated.

Passalacqua's defender, lawyer Salvatore Iannone, had asked for the crime to be declassified from attempted murder to very serious injuries, believing that the punch inflicted by Passalacqua on Ferrerio's left temple had not caused any damage, caused instead to the victim's right temple by falling to the ground.

The gup of Crotone, in addition to condemning Passalacqua has also ordered a compensation of 1,305,000 euros in favor of Davide and a provisional of 200 thousand euros each for Davide's parents and brother. On the other hand, the request for compensation for damage to the image made by the municipality and Province of Crotone and the municipality of Bologna was rejected.

In addition to the sentence of conviction of Passalacqua, Judge Cordasco issued an indictment for two other defendants who chose the ordinary rite: Anna Perugino and her partner Andrej Gajtu, accused of abnormal participation in attempted murder. Perugino is the mother of the girl, at the time still a minor, at the center of the story then degenerated into the beating of Ferrerio mistaken for another person. Perugino and Gajtu will appear on June 15 before the Court of Crotone.

Everything was born from a social relationship between a young girl, in which Passalacqua was interested, and a 31-year-old man, Alessandro Curto, who was hiding under a false profile for which he used the name of an ex-boyfriend of the girl. For this reason, the mother of the child, Anna Perugino, 42, had convinced her daughter to make an appointment with the man to find out who was hiding behind that profile. So, together with a group of relatives and Nicolò Passalacqua that evening she went in front of the courthouse where the group had actually crossed Alessandro Curto.

But the man, realizing that the appointment could be a trap, had slipped away and, after reaching the car, had sent a message to the girl telling her that she could recognize him by the white shirt he was wearing. At that moment Davide Ferrerio passed by, completely unrelated to the story, who had an appointment with a friend to go and eat a pizza. Davide wore a white shirt and for this reason he was pointed by Passalacqua and attacked with a kick to the ribs and a punch to the head.

Alessandro Curto, who responded, like Perugino and Gajtu, to the same charge of abnormal participation in attempted murder, was instead acquitted because the fact does not exist. For the daughter of Anna Perugino, judged by the juvenile court of Catanzaro, probation was ordered.