Milan court convicts ex-unionist in '30 seconds' case that overturned two acquittals, gives 14-month sentence

The Milan Court of Appeal has convicted a 48-year-old former trade unionist for sexual assault, handing down a sentence of 1 year and 2 months in a retrial that dismantles two prior acquittals in a case that became notorious across Italy as the '30-second' case.

The appeal bis ruling

On 10 July 2026, the second criminal section of the Milan Court of Appeal, presided over by Enrico Manzi, delivered a guilty verdict against the defendant. Substitute Prosecutor General Angelo Renna had requested a 2-year prison term; the court instead imposed a sentence of 1 year and 2 months. The judges also awarded the victim, 49-year-old former flight attendant Barbara D'Astolto, a provisional compensation payment of 10,000 euros. Her lawyer, Gionata Bonuccelli, told reporters after earlier closed-door hearings that the defence had tried to undermine her credibility but that she emerged "still very solid, she repeated those facts."

The 2018 assault and the initial acquittals

The case stems from March 2018, when D'Astolto asked to meet the unionist at an office inside Malpensa Airport to discuss pending civil disputes with her employer. In an interview with Fanpage.it, she recounted how the man began touching, kissing and massaging her shoulders and back. "I froze, incredulous," she said. "I didn't know if I was imagining it or if it was really happening. I was afraid, I didn't know him and I knew I was physically at a disadvantage, alone in an empty office." After roughly thirty seconds she stood up and left the room, later breaking down in her car. She filed a formal complaint in July of that year.

Despite her testimony, the court at first instance in Busto Arsizio acquitted the man in January 2022. The first appeal court in Milan confirmed that acquittal on 24 June 2024. Both rulings rested on the reasoning that the conduct had not nullified every possible reaction from the injured party, because it had lasted for a narrow time window of "20-30 seconds" that would have allowed her to slip away.

I feel relieved after what I hope is the end of a story that has filled my entire life these years. I have paid a very high price. Hardly a day passed without my mind going back to this. There was never a day when my brain was free of these thoughts.

The Court of Cassation steps in

Prosecutor Renna appealed the acquittals, and in February 2025 the Court of Cassation annulled the second verdict and ordered a new appeal. The supreme court's reasoning was unambiguous: the delay in the victim's reaction (her "manifestation of dissent") was irrelevant in the context of sexual violence. The judges wrote that consuming the offence only requires the perpetrator to reach the intimate parts of the victim, and that the briefness of the bodily contact, whether the victim managed to wriggle free, or whether the aggressor achieved erotic satisfaction are all jurisprudentially indifferent. The Cassation further stressed that the surprise of being assaulted "can be such as to overcome" contrary will, placing the victim in an "impossibility to defend" themselves.

What the verdict changes

The sentence, though lower than the two years requested by the prosecution, marks a definitive legal turnaround. Italy's highest court established that a fleeting, forcible intimate contact is sufficient to constitute sexual violence, rejecting the lower courts' logic that a 20- to 30-second window gave the woman an opportunity to escape. D'Astolto, who is no longer a flight attendant, told reporters after the verdict that she was "not happy" but felt relief, adding that she hopes the ruling will finally draw a line under a case she says has consumed her life for over eight years.