Fighting the Mafia in Italy and Beyond, 08/31
Presented by the David F. and Constance B. Girard-diCarlo Center for Ethics, Integrity and Compliance
Monday, August 31
12:20–1:20 p.m.
Martin G. McGuinn ’67 Ceremonial Courtroom (Room 201)
The Girard-diCarlo Center will welcome Felice Piemontese, PhD, attorney at law and of counsel at Nexum Legal STA and research fellow at the University of Foggia, Italy, to discuss legal responses to organized crime in Italy. He will also remember the 1992 massacres of Capaci and Via D’Amelio, in which judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, along with Falcone’s wife, Francesca Morvillo, and their escort agents, were killed by the mafia. The legacy these two judges left in the fight against the mafia and organized crime, which led to the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, signed in Palermo in 2000, is particularly important for both Italy and the US.
As part of the event, Piemontese will provide an overview of a scholarship opportunity for at least one Villanova Law student to spend a week in Italy during summer 2027, learning about the legal framework, institutions and people combating organized crime today. This is in conjunction with the Law School and Piemontese law firm.
This event is co-sponsored by the Criminal Law Society. Lunch will be provided—quantities are limited. No registration is necessary.
Felice Piemontese, PhD, is an Italian attorney at law and researcher. As a senior consultant, he works for the Italian government within accounting controls and public procurement procedures. He specializes in administrative law, with a focus on the regulation of public administration, public procurement law and administrative sanctions.
During his PhD, he focused on legal instruments to prevent and combat the infiltration of organized crime into the public and private sectors. From October 2021 to January 2022, he conducted research at Villanova Law, focusing on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and conducting a comparative analysis with the Italian legal instrument known as the anti-Mafia information measure (interdittiva antimafia). His article, “Preventing and Fighting Organized Crime and Mafia-Type Infiltration: The Italian Anti-Mafia Information Model Compared with US Civil RICO” in The Italian Law Journal (2022, Vol. 8, Issue 2), covers this topic in more detail. The most extensive findings of his research were subsequently incorporated into his first publication (“La sanzione amministrativa. Aporie e opzioni sistematiche,” Turin, 2025, pp. 1–208), which was presented in Rome on June 25, 2025, at the Chamber of Deputies in the presence of the Italian Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio. He also spent time studying and researching abroad at the Department de Derecho Administrativo y Procesal (Universitat de Valencia, Spain) and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg, Germany).
