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LA STAMPA

Ex-Wife Killer Of Slain Gucci Heir Would Rather Stay In Prison Than Have To Work

“I’ve never worked in my life, I won’t start now,” says Patrizia Reggiani, who has served half of a 26-year sentence for commissioning the murder of her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci. She is now eligible for parole, but would rather stay in jail than join a w

San Vittore prison where Reggiani prefers to stay (Telenova)
San Vittore prison where Reggiani prefers to stay (Telenova)
Fabio Poletti

MILAN - For some, work is a prison. For others, like Patrizia Reggiani, the former Mrs. Maurizio Gucci, staying in prison is better than working. Having served half of a 26-year sentence for commissioning the murder of her ex husband, the last heir of the Italian fashion dynasty Gucci, Reggiani is entitled to work release. But she is not interested.

"I've never worked in my life, I won't start now," she answered, when the Italian judges reviewing her case asked why she had not applied to the program.

Once a well-to-do Milanese lady, Reggiani has been sharing a cell in Milan's San Vittore prison with different cellmates, two evergreen plants, and a ferret, since her January 1997 arrest for the murder of her husband, who was shot a few blocks from home.

Reggiani's lawyer, Danilo Buongiorno, defend his client's right to not apply for work release. "It's up to her to choose. Her decision has to be respected," he says. "My client is not well. She is still suffering from her 1992 brain surgery. Living with her cellmates is not easy."

Obviously, life in jail is hardly easy for this once rich socialite who, when arrested, complained that she missed her make up. She later obtained access to lipstick and rouge. Reggiani has spoken nicely of her two cellmates. "They are so nice. They even help me to make the bed," Reggiani said.

Weeping in a Rolls

Once a waitress with sparkling eyes who became Mrs. Gucci, Reggiani paid a fortune teller and an unemployed driver to plot the murder of her husband, a womanizer who had decided to leave her. Prison should be tough for her, but apparently not as tough as working. She was famous for her extravagant life, for spending some 10,000 euros a month for orchids alone, and for once famously declaring, ""I would rather weep in a Rolls Royce than be happy on a bicycle."" She is still the same. Working in a gym or restaurant would be tougher for her than prison.

"Anyway, since 2005, my client is allowed out to visit her elderly mother," says her lawyer. Twice a month, for 12 hours, Patrizia Reggiani leaves the prison to return to the luxury building in the center of Milan where she used to live. Now, her mother lives with servants in the opulent five-story palace, which includes a private gym.

During those 12-hour leaves, Reggiani must try to forget the squalor of the cell, and the sadistic cellmates who once hanged her first ferret, Bambi. Still, she has to walk past the sign posts of her dark past: the bar in the elegant piazza San Babila, the corner of the nearby street, where her husband was shot, Maurizio Gucci's office, where the doorman Giuseppe Onorato still works. Onorato, who survived two shots from the gunman who killed Gucci, still waits for Patrizia Reggiani to pay him 100,000 euros in court-ordered damages. The former Mrs. Gucci still lives in a world of illusions, a place where she has learned how to ignore everything, even the sound of the door of the jail cell that slams shut every night behind her.

Read the original article in Italian

Photo - Telenova

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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