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

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has disclosed that the Federal Government may recover and sell the assets of Dana Air to refund passengers and travel agents whose funds remain trapped following the suspension of the airline’s operations.

The Minister disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday at the Ministry’s fourth quarter stakeholders’ engagement to enhance governance for effective service delivery in aviation with the theme: “leveraging public feedback to drive excellence in aviation services”.

According to him, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) will be directed to probe why funds trapped by the airline are yet to be refunded.

He revealed that the Authority suspended the operations of the airline as a matter of choice between safety and disaster.

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“For Dana, the problem is that it was a choice between safety and disaster. So we didn’t take the commercial thing as priority. The priority was safety, and we all looked at the damning reports that we had met on the table.

“It was a decision of the NCAA to suspend them, but I pushed them to say, look, these are the reports we are seeing on the table about safety record, about lack of standards that put the lives of Nigerians at risk. If they continue flying, I don’t know whether most of us will be here. Many of us would have been victims of one of those flights. God forbid.”

According to him, “I have asked Najomo to dig deep to find out how those passengers and agents will be refunded. He has to dig deep on that.

“One solution will also be that if that same individual or those entities are trying to come back to aviation under any guise, whether to go and register a new AOC or use any business within the aviation sector, they have to go and settle their debts first.

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“We should look at their assets. There are assets that are still available. Let them sell their assets. Let’s cannibalize their revenue and pay people. Let’s find a way to go after their assets and get money to pay Nigerians who are owed.

“NCAA should do that because they can’t get away with it.”

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.