By Barbie Latza Nadeau, NCS
(NCS) — Italy’s most well-known influencer, Chiara Ferragni, has been cleared of felony wrongdoing in a 2-million-euro ($2.33 million) fraud case involving Christmas truffles, Easter eggs and youngsters with most cancers.
A choose in Milan dominated Wednesday that aggravated fraud charges towards Ferragni regarding her alleged promise to donate proceeds from gross sales of a restricted version, pink-boxed “pandoro” Christmas cake to a kids’s most cancers charity weren’t admissible in courtroom.
Prosecutors had requested a 20-month jail sentence for the 38-year-old style and make-up influencer.
“Everything we have done, we have done in good faith, none of us has profited,” she instructed the courtroom at a listening to in November, admitting she had made a “communication error.”
Ferragni partnered with Italian confectioner Balocco to market restricted version Pandoro “Pink Christmas” truffles in Italy for the festive season in 2022 and 2023, and later, fancy “Dolci Preziosi” chocolate Easter eggs. The advertising marketing campaign prompt proceeds would go to the Regina Margherita kids’s hospital in Turin to assist paediatric most cancers analysis, boosting gross sales.
Ferragni’s issues started after an investigative journalist revealed that Balocco had made a 50,000-euro ($58,000) donation to the youngsters’s hospital for most cancers analysis previous to getting into into the sponsorship settlement with Ferragni’s firms, and that the influencer was paid a industrial stipend of 1 million euros for sponsorship. Before lengthy, it emerged that the proceeds of the truffles would go on to Ferragni, in addition to the 1 million euros, and never the hospital.
Neither Balocco nor the hospital have been charged with fraud, nor was Ferragni’s then-husband, the rapper Federico Lucia, often called Fedez. But the multi-million-euro empire that Ferragni and Fedez had constructed quickly fell aside.
The couple had a actuality tv program, in style podcasts, style manufacturers and even pop-up shops. They pushed progressive politics, together with pro-LGBTQ points, drawing the ire of each the highly effective Catholic Church and right-wing politicians, together with Giorgia Meloni who got here to energy in 2022 because the scandal broke.
“The real role models are not influencers who make loads of money promoting expensive panettoni that are supposedly for charity,” Meloni mentioned from the stage at her political social gathering pageant in 2023.
The scandal, dubbed “Pandorogate,” captivated the nation and spurred laws — pushed by Meloni — to reign in influencers.
What began as a easy fraudulent promoting allegation became a state affair, with Italy’s legal professional common charging Ferragni criminally in 2025, even though she and her firms paid €3.4 million to the hospital, gave again the sponsorship payment to confectioner Balocco and reimbursed those that‘d purchased the truffles and eggs.
As the saga unfolded, Ferragni’s marriage fell aside, and Fedez, as soon as the darling of Italy’s progressive political set, embraced conservatism and now reveals up at Meloni’s conferences and on different right-wing political levels.
The-NCS-Wire
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