ROME – A Vatican court found a former Vatican bank president guilty of embezzlement and money laundering during the pontificates of St. John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI, ending a chapter in the long-term cleansing of his finances.
The court said Angelo Caloia and his lawyer, Gabriele Liuzzo, manipulated sales of the bank’s real estate assets for their own profit from 2001 to 2008.
Mr. Caloia, 81, and Mr. Liuzzo, 97, whose trial began in 2018, were sentenced to 8 years and 11 months in prison each. Mr. Liuzzo’s son, Lamberto Liuzzo, 55, was sentenced to five years and two months in prison for his participation in the scheme. The men were also ordered to pay the bank 23 million euros ($ 27.9 million) in compensation.
None of the men appeared in court for the sentence. Caloia’s lawyer, Domenico Pulitanò, said he would appeal. Gabriele and Lamberto Liuzzo’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In their 2018 indictment, Vatican prosecutors accused Caloia and his lawyer of causing losses of more than € 50 million to the bank, officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion. The men were accused of embezzling money from the sale of 29 bank properties, most of them in or near Rome. However, the court found insufficient evidence to convict in relation to some of the properties.