Berlusconi attorney disputes tape veracity

ROME — Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s attorney has disputed the veracity of tape recordings released by an Italian newsweekly that purports to show the premier asking a prostitute to wait for him in bed while he showers.

Attorney Niccolo Ghedini says in a statement that the recordings are “without any merit, completely improbable and the fruit of invention.”

The left-leaning L’Espresso magazine put the audio of the recordings on its Web site Monday and alleged they were made by a prostitute during encounters with the premier.

Ghedini says in a statement to the ANSA news agency that the tapes were never supposed to be released publicly because they are part of an ongoing investigation. He warns that legal action will be taken against anyone who distributes them.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ROME (AP) — An Italian newsweekly has released tape recordings of what it says was the night Silvio Berlusconi spent with a prostitute in which the premier is purportedly heard asking her to wait for him in bed while he showers.

The escort, Patrizia D’Addario, has said she taped her encounters with Berlusconi as well as the parties he threw for young women at his residences which have become the source of major scandal for the 72-year-old leader.

Berlusconi has denied he ever paid anyone for sex and has called the allegations “trash” meant to smear him. Polls show the months-long scandal has hardly dented Berlusconi’s popularity — a sign of his remarkable political resilience and Italians’ indifference to the sexual foibles of the political class.

The left-leaning newsweekly L’Espresso, which did not say how it obtained the tapes, put the recordings on its Web site Monday, saying they were taken during and after two parties Berlusconi threw at his Roman palazzo last year which D’Addario attended.

In one recording, a voice identified as Berlusconi’s is heard telling D’Addario about a book he designed. He interrupts himself and says: “I’m going to take a shower as well … and then will you wait for me in the big bed if you finish first?”

D’Addario has said the encounter took place Nov. 4 — and that Berlusconi skipped a party for the U.S. election to spend the night with her. She says she returned in the morning to her central Rome hotel.

The tapes also feature an alleged phone call between Berlusconi and D’Addario the day after in which the premier marvels at how he was able to get through a speech on such little sleep, L’Espresso said.

D’Addario responds that she too wasn’t tired but had lost her voice.

“How come?” Berlusconi allegedly asks. “We didn’t scream.”

A spokesman for Berlusconi’s party, Daniele Capezzone, didn’t deny the authenticity of the recordings. He said L’Espresso was merely trying to revive an “already dead” media scandal.

D’Addario has said she went public with her story, and the contents of the recordings, saying Berlusconi had reneged on a promise to help her out with a real estate problem she was having.

D’Addario, who has confirmed she is a high-end prostitute, has turned the recordings over to prosecutors in the southern city of Bari as part of an investigation into a local businessman accused of recruiting and paying young women to attend Berlusconi’s parties.

The businessman, Giampaolo Tarantini, has apologized to Berlusconi for causing scandal, saying he merely brought the women to Berlusconi’s fetes to show off and only reimbursed them for their travel expenses.

Berlusconi hasn’t been implicated in the investigation, and shows no signs of suffering politically for the revelations. His conservative allies won big in European Parliament elections after the scandal broke, and a poll published June 28 showed his popularity had only dipped two statistically insignificant percentage points — from 51 percent to 49 percent. The three-time premier, who has survived several corruption investigations, has insisted “Italians want me this way.”

Berlusconi’s wife, however, cited his fondness for young beautiful women in announcing a few months ago that she was divorcing him.

The recordings also include phone calls between D’Addario and Tarantini, including one made as D’Addario returned to her hotel the morning after she allegedly spent the night with Berlusconi.

“We didn’t get any sleep,” she tells Tarantini, according to L’Espresso, adding the premier was very “affectionate.”

She tells him there was no envelope of cash from Berlusconi, as Tarantini had apparently promised. But she says instead she got a promise that the premier would send some aides to help her deal with some problems she was having in getting a bed and breakfast built in Bari.