‘Dinner receipts were forged’: Rome mayor

Speaking to the Public Prosecutor Roberto Felici on Monday, the embattled mayor denied using public funds to pay for social dinners in Rome and suggested that his signature had been forged on the contested receipts, AGI reported.

Marino also argued that some of the receipts had been issued on days he was out of the country.

“The mayor has declared that all of the signatures on the contested receipts are not authentic, a fact which can be seen with the naked eye,” Marino's lawyer Enzo Musco said in a note.

“If he was abroad at the time he obviously couldn't have been in Rome to sign the receipts,” the lawyers note added.

Marino was forced to resign on October 12th over the scandal, which proved to be the final nail in the coffin after a turbulent 28 months in office.

Following the mayor's resignation, politicians from the Brothers of Italy and Five Star Movement Parties asked the public prosecutors office in Rome to open a case into the mayor's erroneous expenses.

Marino will remain in office until November 2nd and hopes to finally realize a longstanding goal of pedestrianizing the area around the Colosseum and Trajan's Forum before he steps down.