Italian DA to Proceed Without Data from Toyota

The Italian law enforcement authorities have decided to proceed with their indictment of two former Ferrari employees suspected of smuggling confidential computer data from the Maranello Formula One team, and the two will now face charges without the actual data, found in Toyota's factory in Germany, used as evidence in their case.

Angelo Santini and Mauro Iacconi have been charged with four different offences, all concerning a single criminal act. The charges include unauthorized access to Ferrari's computers, misappropriation of files, disclosure of confidential information, and smuggling ("fencing") of CD-roms. Of these offences, the latter is the most serious, leading to a mandatory punishment of two to eight years imprisonment.

Part of the evidence collected in the investigation was a Ferrari computer software found in Toyota's wind tunnel computer in Cologne, Germany. But when attempting to send the software back to Italy, to the district attorney of Modena, Toyota claimed the data has additional code that belongs to Toyota and went to the local court in Cologne to obtain an injunction.

Now it seems the Italian authorities have decided not to wait for the code any longer and proceed with the indictment against Santini and Iacconi regardless. Cologne's district attorney, Siegmar Raupach, told Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport: "We have been notified of the indictment request for Angelo Santini and Mauro Iacconi, but they told us they don't need the material sized at Toyota Motorsport because the evidence they already have is more than enough."

Raupach said his office did not make a decision whether to proceed with the legal hearing in Germany. "Toyota Motorsport objected sending that documentation to Italy," he said. "We haven't decided yet [whether to proceed with this legal battle], but at this point it's useless. I don't even know if, with this new situation, the court will make a decision or if the material will be given back to Toyota."

However, the Cologne DA also suggested that the two Italians, as well as other Toyota employees, could face further charges in Germany.

"We'll be able to proceed based only on what came out of the Italian investigation," Raupach told the newspaper. "We've already made a formal request to Modena's DA for a copy of the indictment legal proceedings, and after having examined it we'll decide what to do."

Both Santini and Iacconi plan to pleed innocence in their trial. Andrea Mattioli, Iacconi's defending lawyer, told Gazzetta dello Sport last week: "I don't want to get into the merits of the trial, for which we'll perform our defense when the time will come, because to a skillful prosecution the defense will object with established factual elements.

"It is useful, however, to know the chronology of the facts in order to properly understand that the responsibilities of my client are almost irrelevant.

"Iacconi left Ferrari in January 2000 and some time later was hired by Toyota with the title of director of the aerodynamics department's workshop. Fifty people worked under him, but when he got into Toyota's German base, the factory didn't even exist yet, just to illustrate at what level Toyota was at the time.

"Iacconi contributed to the growing of the car, also in structural terms, but left the company in early 2003. The technical and aerodynamical analogies with the Ferrari car can be related to that year's car.

"According to the prosecution, there would be a complicity between them (Iacconi and Santini), because in the searches the police did at my client's home and office they found a CD-rom belonging to Santini from the time he still worked at Ferrari, the contents of which are of little significance as they are aerodynamics tests from 2002 and are not strictly related to the design of the Japanese car.

"Also, all the files for which there is a suspicion of misappropriation are dated up to 1999, so it is unusable material which is part of Iacconi's history and archive. He is a professional who entered Ferrari in the 1980s and has climbed the ladder thanks to his skill and his enthusiasm which he's always put into his work, up to becoming a qualified technician.

"My client and Santini's conducts are parallel regarding three counts of indictment, but are chronologically distant (Santini joined Toyota in 2003) and are also different in their technical nature. The only thing they have in common is the custody of a CD-rom of little relevance."