“I always knew I had done nothing wrong. I explained it to everyone, from the prosecutor to the various judges, from the beginning. I was right, even if it does not compensate for 9 years of suffering.” Alberto Muraglia is the underwear cop who clocked in in his underpants and tank top. His image went around the world in 2015 when the municipality of Sanremo accused him of fraud. After the total acquittal, the final sentence regarding his dismissal arrived yesterday. Which was also illegitimate according to the Supreme Court, after the decision of the Court of Appeal of Genoa. And he tells The imprint what he thought: “I expected this conclusion, because it confirms what I had immediately said to the first labor judge. He did not believe me and despite all the testimony in my favor, he rejected my appeal.”
The story of the Genoa underwear cop
“The Genoa Court of Appeal overturned everything because there was a logic. It was clear that the marking of underwear took place either before or after working hours, with the machine located in front of the service room. Once this was proven, the discussion was over,” explains Muraglia. Who adds that the photo of him in his underwear “will forever be stuck in my head. Even today, comments explode on social media as soon as they appear. People are not convinced that there was a fundamental error on the part of the judiciary, that there was a judgment based on a single photo. And a single shot certainly could not explain that I was doing my job, people saw something else. A cunning card-taker.”
He also spent 86 days under house arrest. “There remains only a little discontent with the behavior of the former secretary general of the Commune, who had led me to hope that she was ready to accept my thesis, and then dismissed me. Even a suspension would have been enough, pending the criminal trial.”
Explanations to the investigating judge
Muraglia recounts that “three days after the arrests I was at the investigating judge to explain everything. I half expected an apology, but instead they opened three other files on me, all archived. I even abandoned the order, you can't accept it when you know you haven't done anything. And so much the acquittal “because the fact does not exist” and the reinstatement at work arrived. He explained that he did not accept his reinstatement because “I no longer wanted to work for people who did not believe in me, in my honesty, despite the fact that I had always worn the uniform with honor and dignity. And then the municipality also appealed the sentence to reinstatement.”
Now the economic question remains: “I was paid 132 thousand euros, subtracting from the initial figure of 227 thousand euros what I had earned in the meantime, according to their calculations. However, according to my accountant, there is a difference of 60,000 euros. Four months ago, I asked the municipality how much they had paid me, they are still waiting for the answer.”
The repairman
In fact, in recent years, Muraglia has retrained as a fixer: “I opened a small workshop, now it works wonderfully. My daughter Aurora is with me, she takes care of the administrative side, the labels for the intercoms, the keys. He is studying computer science, all he has to do now is defend his thesis. My nephew is also here.” But he says he will not forget these nine years of ordeal: “It is me who does not want to forget, quite the contrary. Even if my image has been ruined forever, and I did not deserve it, otherwise I am happy about it. It was a long, difficult and painful journey. But I came out of it a winner.”
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