Enrico ‘Chico’ Forti, pseudonym of Enrico Forti, former Italian sailor and television producer, returns to Italy after over twenty years in prison in the United States. But who is Chico Forti? Why was he sentenced to life imprisonment? What does his story tell?
To understand what happened to Enrico ‘Chico’ Forti, we need to go back 24 years, to June 2000, when the television producer and former windsurfing champion from Trento was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder, which occurred in 1998, of Dale Pike, an Australian who had left Ibiza to go to Miami to meet Forti and talk about a real estate deal.
It was Monday, February 16, 1998 when Pike’s body was found next to traces of blood. Someone had shot Dale Pike twice in the head with a .22 caliber gun and had left the body, naked, on an isolated stretch of beach at Virginia Key.
According to the Americans, the killer or the mastermind was Forti, for reasons of interest, because he feared the deal would fall through. According to the Italians and those in the United States who defend the Italian, the mastermind would have been a German fraudster, a friend of the victim’s father.
In reality, there is no evidence against Forti, sentenced to life imprisonment, but only circumstantial evidence, so much so that the Miami police, considering him a suspect, set a trap for him, making him believe that the victim’s father, with whom Forti was negotiating the deal, had also died and inducing him to lie about his knowledge, albeit fleeting, of the man, only to retract the version the following day. This, without ever having a fair trial and without the Italian being interrogated and informed of his rights, namely the possibility of having a lawyer present before answering questions.
There has never been any evidence to confirm one of the two versions released regarding Forti’s statements, but in the end, the police version was taken as true. From the sum of these suspicions and forced confessions, the verdict of conviction and the life sentence were then born.
A sentence that was also weighed down by an error: not requesting a forensic pathologist’s analysis of the victim’s body by the defense and not even clarifying the exact time of the victim’s death.
It is certainly shocking that the man who in 1990 had won 80 million lire at the famous “Telemike” show hosted by Mike Bongiorno ended up from the altars to the dust. His transfer to Miami, thanks to the lucky win, had also determined further reasons for conflict with the Miami police, since Forti had made a documentary about Versace’s murder, casting doubt on the official version and the police’s actions.
The fact remains that Forti has always maintained his innocence and has spent, despite everything, twenty years locked up in a Florida prison. Thanks to an agreement between the United States and our country, Forti has been granted the opportunity to serve his sentence in Italy. Here, as supported by his lawyer and those who defend his innocence, he will have access to a different treatment than he has received so far. But what were the elements that led to the man’s conviction in the United States? It should be noted that sentences in the United States are never motivated. The jury, having taken note of what the prosecution has presented and listened to what the defense has said, only determines whether the person is innocent or guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Here, instead, the sentence must be motivated because it can be appealed. The first element that led to the conviction is the motive, very strong, because the victim (Dale Pike) had the opportunity to hinder a crucial business for Chico Forti, namely to take over the Pike family’s hotel (Pikes, very well known at the time for hosting show business personalities). An operation through which he would have obtained loans from Miami banks, using this hotel as collateral. In fact, at the time of the murder, Forti was in a difficult economic situation, he had debts. It is not clear whether it was due to reckless financial operations in the real estate market or because he was in contact with somewhat ‘particular’ characters.
There is also much talk about the murder weapon, a .22 caliber gun, which was never found. The case has divided public opinion between those who believe in his innocence and those who believe he is guilty, both in the United States and in Italy. Ferdinando Imposimato, Forti’s defender, considered the case “shocking”. “Chico Forti was the victim of a judicial error and horror. There is no evidence against him and no clues. (…) They charged him with a generic, contradictory, illegitimate accusation because they first said he was accused of materially and personally killing Dale Pike. When he proved that he was in another place at the time of the crime, they changed the charge. They said ‘Either you were the author or accomplice, instigator’.
This goes against a rule of American criminal procedure,” explained the magistrate with clarity of words. Undoubtedly, Chico Forti’s case will continue to be talked about and there have certainly been procedural and substantive anomalies that make the process that led to his conviction at least questionable.
However, the excessive treatment of welcome he received upon arriving in Italy is equally excessive, received by the Prime Minister as if he were a national hero. But that is another story, which confirms how often the media value of a case prevails over any ethical or simple opportunistic reason.
