The Court of Assizes of Appeal of Cagliari has handed down an eighteen-year prison sentence to former doctor Alba Veronica Puddu, 53, accused of aggravated voluntary homicide, defrauding an incapacitated person and fraud for promising to “cure” tumors with ultrasound. In a partial reform of the life sentence handed down in the first instance, the judges of the appeal have recognized the woman's partial mental defect and the statute of limitations for minor crimes, while they have confirmed the provisional award on compensation.
The requests of the Attorney General Luigi Patronaggio were therefore accepted, who had asked to reform the life sentence, but still condemn her for the contested facts. Defense lawyers Gianluca Aste and Michele Zuddas will wait for the reading of the reasons for the sentence to then decide on the appeal to the Supreme Court.
On January 19, 2023, Puddu was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance: the judges had gone beyond the request of the public prosecution, that is, 24 years of imprisonment. The civil parties, with the lawyers Gianfranco Sollai, Rita Dedola and Mauro Massa, had also requested the conviction for the former doctor, now struck off from the Medical Association. The psychiatric assessment ordered by the Court and entrusted to Professor Elvezio Pilfo - already an expert for Annamaria Franzoni in the Cogne case and more recently in the Alessia Pifferi trial - had established the partial incapacity of understanding and willing of the accused, deeming her however "socially dangerous and not capable of practicing the medical profession".
The investigation began after an investigation by the TV show Le Iene in 2017, which reported cases of cancer patients who had abandoned traditional therapies for those proposed by Alba Veronica Puddu.
