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A court in Milan on Wednesday acquitted Italian fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni on charges of alleged fraud in a case involving the sale of charity Christmas cakes and Easter eggs.<\/p>\n
Ferragni, 38, had faced accusations of aggravated fraud in which she was accused of profiting handsomely from charity drives involving the sale of a “designer” pandoro, produced by Balocco, and chocolate Easter eggs produced by Dolci Preziosi.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors in the fast-track, closed-door hearing had sought a jail sentence of one year and eight months for Ferragni, in a high-profile case dubbed ‘Pandorogate’ by the Italian media.<\/p>\n
Ferragni has always denied any wrongdoing and has vowed to prove her innocence, telling reporters outside the court on Wednesday: “The nightmare is over”.<\/p>\n
I’m very happy to get my life back on track” – Ferragni said – “These were very tough years, I had faith in justice, and justice has been done.”<\/p>\n
Background<\/strong><\/p>\n The prosecution claimed that Ferragni misled consumers into thinking that their purchases of a pricey pandoro cake would help to fund medical equipment for a children’s hospital in Turin.<\/p>\n The pink pandoro went on sale in Italy in 2022 with a price tag of \u20ac9, more than double the normal retail price of unbranded cakes made by confectioner Balocco.<\/p>\n In December 2023, Italy’s antitrust authority fined Ferragni more than \u20ac1 million for “unfair commericial practices” in relation to the branded pandoro.<\/p>\n The competition authority also handed a fine of \u20ac420,000 to Balocco which it found had made a one-off donation of \u20ac50,000 to the hospital months in advance of the pandoro going on the market.<\/p>\n The authority also found that two Ferragni-controlled companies received promotional fees of around \u20ac1 million, none of which was handed over to the children’s hospital.<\/p>\n At the time, Ferragni responded with an emotional video in which she apologised for the pandoro case, admitting to a “communication error” but claiming it was a “mistake made in good faith”.<\/p>\n In the wake of the controversy, Ferragni donated \u20ac1 million to the Regina Margherita children’s hospital in Turin and vowed to keep business and charity “completely separate” in the future.<\/p>\n Easter eggs<\/strong><\/p>\n A similar case involving Ferragni-branded Easter eggs in support of I Bambini delle Fate, an association that helps children with autism, allegedly earned the social media star far in excess of the amount that was given to the charitable cause.<\/p>\n After reaching an agreement with the antitrust authority, Ferragni paid the Bambini delle Fate association \u20ac1.2 million.<\/p>\n Photo credit: chery75 \/ Shutterstock.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ferragni had risked jail if found guilty of alleged fraud involving charity endorsement deals. A court in Milan on Wednesday acquitted Italian fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni on charges of alleged fraud in a case involving the sale of charity Christmas cakes and Easter eggs. Ferragni, 38, had faced accusations of aggravated fraud in which she<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[29249,235,12829,15515,28360,3132,29250,28361],"class_list":["post-44960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eventi","tag-acquits","tag-chiara","tag-court","tag-ferragni","tag-fraud","tag-italian","tag-pandorogate","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}