Mussolini's husband risks trial in teen prostitute case

Mauro Floriani among 60 clients ID'd in probe

(ANSA) - Rome, July 2 - Rome prosecutors on Wednesday said they will request indictments for some 60 men, including the husband of right-wing MP Alessandra Mussolini, on suspicion of hiring two underage prostitutes working out of an apartment in an upscale Rome neighborhood.

The statement comes a day after the courts convicted eight people, including the mother of one of the teenage hookers and including clients Gianluca Sammarone and Francesco Ferraro, who were sentenced to a year in jail. Prosecutors in March said they identified eight young women, two of them minors, as working in the teen bordello allegedly run by Army Major Corporal Nunzio Pizzacalla and pimp Mirko Ieni, a barman. Wiretaps revealed Mussolini's husband Mauro Floriani is one of the suspected johns who contacted the girls most often.

Floriani, a former finance police officer, is currently a manager at State-controlled national rail company Trenitalia. He has three children with his wife, who is the grand-daughter of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and has recently served as chair of a parliamentary children's rights committee. Floriani reportedly made a voluntary statement to police as to why his name was likely to show up on the girls' phone records. The underage hooker case made headlines in October when five men were arrested on suspicion of paying for sex with two girls aged 14 and 15, who studied together at the same high school in Rome.

The girls told investigators they began working in May 2013 after being lured through a social network called 'Bakeca Incontri' (Meetings Bulletin Board). They went to school in the morning and worked in the afternoon, earning up to 300 euros per client. They reportedly used part of the money to supply their pimps - including one of their mothers - with drugs. The Italian unit of international child protection agency ECPAT says there could be as many as 11,000 underage sex workers in Italy.