One of Rai's top investigative reporters got a letter of reprimand from the state broadcaster Thursday for alleging that Justice Minister Carlo Nordio visited the Uruguay ranch of businessman Giuseppe Cipriani where Cipriani's partner and Silvio Berlusconi's former dental hygienist and ex People of Freedom (PdL) party Lombardy regional councillor Nicolette Minetti is alleged to have run a brothel.
The reporter, Sigfrido Ranucci, host of the Report programme, made the allegation about Nordio on the Berlusconi channel current affairs prgramme E' Sempre Carta Bianca, hosted by late Italian Commmunist Party (PCI) Enrico Berlinguer's former Rai journalist daughter Bianca Berlinguer.
Nordio has denied ever attending the luxury ranch owned by Cipriani, the grandson of Venice's iconic Harry's Bar founder, on his Uruguayan estate.
The allegation, which the letter of reprimand said was unfounded and unsourced, was made as part of coverage of the pardon granted to Minetti in February by President Sergio Mattarella who commuted her 2 year and 10 month sentence for bunga bunga pimping because she allegedly had to care for a gravely ill eight-year-old boy she and Cipriani had adopted in Uruguay after she started a new life and began volunteering with needy children both in Milan and Uruguay.
