Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's trial continued Friday, when a Moroccan woman who was allegedly paid to have sex with the politician while underage, took the stand.
She recounted crazy parties with the former prime minister, including one where a female politician dressed as a nun and stripped for Mr. Berlusconi.
Karima el-Mahroug, also known as Ruby Heart-Stealer, said that the wild shindigs Berlusconi threw were usually held in Berlusconi's villa. She recalled one party where a woman wore a mask of President Obama's face, while another put on a red wig and court gown, mocking Ilda Boccassini, the Milan magistrate who is spearheading the prosecution against the former prime minister in the sex scandal trials, reported the New York Times.
El-Mahroug also noted that Berlusconi had an enormous disco club in his villa, complete with a silver stripper pole.
"I was surprised to go to the house of the prime minister," she said during her testimony. "It was a strange thing for me. It didn't seem real."
In court, el-Mahroug said that she went to Mr. Berlusconi's villa outside Milan six times and was handed an envelope stuffed with 500-euro bills upon each visit. Still, both el-Mahroug and Mr. Berlusconi deny having any sexual contact in the past.
Mr. Berlusconi has been enwrapped with scandal since his days as the prime minister. He is also involved in a case in which he and a handful of his associates are being accused of putting up offshore companies to purchase rights to show American movies. Additionally, he is in trouble for tax evasion.
The day of the trial, Italy's current prime minister Enrico Letta told the press that his government would hold off on a highly criticized property tax on citizens' first-purchased homes, in hopes of relieving the country's economy, which has suffered at the hands of a recession since the 1970s.
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