Former Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi obtained a substantial reduction of the alimony he pays to his former wife this week when a Milan appeals court ruled in his favor cutting monthly support payments by 1 million euros.
Billionaire media mogul Berlusconi was initially ordered to pay former wife Veronica Lario three million euros per month in alimony. That amount has now been reduced to two millions per month; in addition, Lario has been ordered to repay 36 million euros (the amount she has been overpaid over the last three years) because the Milan court has made the order retroactive.
Lario can appeal the latest decision to Italy's top Cassation Court.
Berlusconi, who is still the leader of the right-wing party Forza Italia despite having been expelled from the Italian Parliament, had asked the appeals court to cut Lario's alimony from the initial award of three million per month set in December 2012.
Berlusconi married Lario, a former actress, in 1990 and has three children with her (plus another two from a previous marriage). Lario filed for divorce in 2009 as rumors of Berlusconi's bunga-bunga party nights at his Arcore villa were starting to spread.
Berlusconi,77, is now engaged to 29-year-old Francesca Pascale, a former shop assistant from Naples.
