The “porn-masseur” is extradited from Santo Domingo

The escape of Roberto Benatti, the self-styled physiotherapist from Gallarate, who was convicted of a series of sexual assaults on patients, and who avoided arrest by fleeing to Santo Domingo, has come to an end.

Yesterday, newspapers in Santo Domingo were already reporting the news of his arrest and of his extradition for breaking immigration law. Benatti landed this morning, Sunday 25 October, at Malpensa Airport, where he was accompanied by two police officials from the Dominican Republic, and handed over to the Carabinieri, to Interpol agents and members of the border police, and was taken to the Busto Arsizio prison.

The story began in July 2007, when he was arrested on charges of raping a patient who was unable to fall asleep after being administered sedatives by the fake physiotherapist. The reaction of the young man, who saw the violence with his own eyes, enabled the subsequent intervention by his relatives, who were waiting for him outside the office.

The arrival of the Carabinieri and the subsequent investigations led to terrifying findings: there were 48 records of violence described obsessively by Benatti himself, on his PC, and this number rose to more than one hundred after the discovery of another office in Belluno. The man was jailed and a discussion began between the courts in Busto and Belluno over jurisdiction, with the result that the term of preventive detention expired, and Benatti was freed and he fled abroad.

 

The chairman of the Bench of the Court of Busto Arsizio, Adet Toni Novik, imposed the maximum sentence of 30 years’ prison on him, with consecutive sentences that apparently amounted to 90 years.