Italian prosecutors asked a court on Tuesday to sentence fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni to one year and eight months in prison if found guilty of alleged fraud over charity endorsement deals.

The Instagram star and businesswoman has been on trial since September for aggravated fraud over promotions of a pandoro cake — a Christmas treat similar to a panettone — and Easter eggs, which purported to raise money for charity or social causes.

The 38-year-old, who is based in Milan, told the court during the closed-door hearing on Tuesday that she denied the charges and had always acted “in good faith”, her lawyer Giuseppe Iannaccone said.

Leaving the audience, Ferragni told a throng of journalists that she felt “confident… I can’t say anymore”.

A verdict is expected in January.

Aggravated fraud carries a jail term of between one and five years.

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But Ferragni has chosen a fast-track trial, which gives defendants a sentence reduction — meaning she cannot receive more than a maximum penalty of two years and three months, according to a source close to her team.

In Italy, people sentenced to prison for less than two years rarely serve jail time.

Ferragni started out with a fashion blog, The Blonde Salad, in 2009, and in 2017, Forbes magazine named her its top fashion influencer.

Chronicling her glamorous lifestyle and being paid to promote high-end brands, she built the blog into a lucrative business, then used it as a springboard to launch her own eponymous label with stores around the world.

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Her trailblazing story even became a Harvard Business School example of how social media fame can be monetised.

But the fraud accusations have hit her reputation and her endorsements.

Outside court for a hearing earlier this month, Ferragni acknowledged to journalists that it was a “difficult phase of my life”.

The allegations relate in part to Ferragni’s 2022 endorsement of a pandoro cake purportedly to raise funds for children undergoing treatment at a Turin hospital.

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In December 2023, Italy’s communications watchdog (AGCOM) fined two of Ferragni’s companies one million euros ($1.2 million) for unfair commercial practices for the “Pandoro Pink Christmas” promotion — around the same sum they had made in the deal.

Shoppers were led to believe that buying the special edition cake made by Balocco would benefit the hospital, but it only received a single 50,000-euro donation from the company.

Balocco was fined 420,000 euros at the same time.

AGCOM also investigated Ferragni-branded Easter eggs from 2021 and 2022, linked to a social enterprise initiative.

Ferragni and her husband, rapper and music producer Fedez, who were one of Italy’s most famous celebrity couples, split in 2024.

AFP

A British man changed his plea Wednesday and admitted deliberately ploughing his car into crowds at Liverpool Football Club’s Premier League victory parade in May, in a dramatic twist in his court case.

Paul Doyle had initially denied the 31 charges, including for causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent, affray and dangerous driving, during the May 26 Liverpool city centre incident, which injured dozens, including infants and children.

On the second day of his trial Doyle, wearing a suit and glasses, sobbed in the dock as he entered his guilty pleas to each count.

He will be sentenced over two days starting on December 15.

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Judge Andrew Menary told him to prepare for “a custodial sentence of some length”.

Doyle, from a suburb of Liverpool and reportedly a former Royal Marine, ploughed his Ford Galaxy Titanium into scores of people as they were leaving the May 26 parade celebrating Liverpool’s victory.

He injured 134 people, including infants, other children and adults, according to Merseyside Police.

There were no fatalities, but 50 people required hospital treatment.

The victims had been celebrating the club claiming a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title when the Premier League season ended the previous day.

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Its players had paraded the trophy along the city’s waterfront in front of hundreds of thousands of fans.

Some roads in the central area had been closed to normal traffic to allow the parade to pass.

Police swiftly declared that the incident was not terrorism. But the circumstances of the alleged attack have remained largely unclear.

Sarah Hammond, the Crown Prosecution Service’s top regional prosecutor, said Doyle had “finally accepted that he intentionally drove into crowds of innocent people”.

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She noted dashcam footage from his vehicle showed he became “increasingly agitated by the crowds” and that “rather than wait for them to pass, he deliberately drove at them, forcing his way through”.

“Driving a vehicle into a crowd is an act of calculated violence,” she added.

“This was not a momentary lapse by Paul Doyle — it was a choice he made that day and it turned celebration into mayhem.”

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The criminal charges related to 29 victims, including eight who were children at the time. The youngest was six months old.

Father-of-three Doyle, who has been in custody since his arrest, will remain in prison ahead of his sentencing.

He had originally been charged with seven offences, but 24 new counts were added to the indictment in August.

President Bola Tinubu has nominated non-career ambassadors for the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

The three nominees are Ayodele Oke, Colonel Lateef Are (retd.), and Amin Dalhatu.

A post by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, on X revealed that the postings would be finalised following Senate screening.

According to the statement, Dalhatu previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to South Korea under the Late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

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Oke, an alumnus of Emory University in Atlanta, is a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and previously served as Nigeria’s ambassador to the Secretariat of the Commonwealth of Nations in London.

Colonel Are was the director general of the State Security Service (SSS) from 1999 to 2007, served as National Security Adviser in 2010, and was an officer in the Directorate of Military Intelligence.

He also graduated with First Class honours in Psychology from the University of Ibadan in 1980.

Tinubu had on Wednesday forwarded the names of three non-career ambassadorial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

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The letter was read during plenary by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.

Akpabio has, therefore, directed the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs to review the nominations and report back to the chamber within one week.

There had been calls on the President to appoint ambassadors and high commissioners for foreign missions.

A former Nigerian External Affairs Minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, had argued that, despite internet access to information, diplomacy still required personal ambassadorial contact.

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“I believe credible appointments should be made to the vacant ambassadorial posts. We need to fill them,” Akinyemi said during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today in September.

“The absence of ambassadors does not deny us information. But diplomacy runs on ambassadorial contact, the interaction between governments and ambassadors,” he added.

But while dismissing recent criticisms by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) about delays in ambassadorial appointments in June, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Nigeria’s diplomatic missions remain fully operational and effectively represented by seasoned foreign service officers, including experienced chargés d’affaires.

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The ministry, while acknowledging long-standing structural and funding challenges that predate the current administration, said that Nigerian diplomats continued to serve with distinction, often under difficult circumstances.

Tinubu recalled the country’s ambassadors were recalled by President Tinubu in September 2023.