Women at the centre of Berlusconi scandal being besieged by media

LONDON - The sex scandal engulfing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi seems to be deepening day by day and now the Italian press is besieging models and showgirls, alleged to have accepted cash from him in return for sex.

Maria Ester Garcia Polanco, one of the women at the centre of the scandal, said she was concerned about her daughter because of police raids and being under the media spotlight, reports the Guardian.

“With the newspapers full of this story, I am concerned about my child and what other mothers are saying at school,” said the 27-year-old model and showgirl.

Two weeks ago police woke her at 6a.m. to search for evidence that she was accepting cash gifts and free rent from the Prime Minister, allegedly in return for sexual favours.

Since then journalists have laid siege to Via Olgettina apartment in Milan that is home to Maria and a ’stable’ of other beautiful women, all suspected of participating in Berlusconi’s alleged ‘bunga bunga’ nights of striptease and sex at his villa an hour’s drive to the north.

However, Polanco has rejected the notion that she is a kept woman.

“I never said I had sex with him,” she said.

“The truth is that Berlusconi’s dinners were just normal events followed by karaoke and Berlusconi singing in French,” she said.

Her version of events echoes the stories told by numerous fellow party guests to Berlusconi’s lawyer Niccolo Ghedini.

For another frequent party guest Barbara Guerra too, life has become an uncomfortable experience.

“The morning after the police raid, I opened my front door to find the hall packed with paparazzi,” said the 32-year-old Italian TV star.

“And since the magistrates’ evidence was leaked on the internet - including our mobile phone numbers - I have been getting calls from maniacs in the night,” she added.

As for the incriminating accusations made about the latest ‘bunga bunga’ parties in Milan, Guerra has blamed ‘people trying to attract attention to themselves’.

Guerra’s neighbour is fellow showgirl Arisleida Espinosa, who has had her own problems since the interrogation by magistrates of a friend she took to a Berlusconi party.

The friend told the magistrates that Espinosa received envelopes of cash from the Prime Minister because she had slept with him more than once.

Via Olgettina models, such as Polanco, Guerra and Espinosa, have become Berlusconi’s first line of defence in a battle now shaking Italy’s institutional framework. (ANI)