Introduction
Denis Verdini (born 8 May 1951 in Fivizzano) is an Italian politician and banker.
Biography
He graduated in Political Sciences and later became president of the local cooperative bank Credito Cooperativo Fiorentino.
He began his political career in the Italian Republican Party, without being elected in the 1994 Italian general elections. After Silvio Berlusconi's victory in those elections, he became a member of his Forza Italia party. He was subsequently elected in the Italian Parliament in 2001, 2006 and 2008. He is a minor shareholder (15%) of the newspaper Il Foglio.
In 2009, after Berlusconi created The People of Freedom, he was named member of the national coordination office, together with Ignazio La Russa and Sandro Bondi.
On 23 July 2010 he resigned as president of Credito Cooperativo Fiorentino after his involvement in the so-called "P3" scandal, in which he has been charged for participation in illegal secret activities, aiming to influence the verdict of the Italian Constitutional Court regarding the Lodo Alfano (the law was later declared anti-constitutional).
In July 2015, Verdini left Forza Italia and founded a new political party Liberal Popular Alliance, in support of Matteo Renzi's government.
In March 2016 the Senator Denis Verdini was sentenced by the Seventh Criminal Chamber of the Court of Rome to two years for complicity in corruption relating for the renovation of the Marshals School of Florence.