Top court explains anorexia docs rape

(ANSA) - Rome, September 7 - Italy's supreme Cassation Court said Wednesday it upheld prison sentences for rape against three self-styled eating disorder specialists because their victims did not consent to having sex with them, as the defence argued.
    The Court on May 18 upheld convictions of rape and improper exercise of the medical, psychological, dietary, and psychotherapy professions against 71-year-old Waldo Bernasconi, formerly known as the "anorexia guru" in Italian and Swiss clinics, his right-hand man Piero Billari, founder of an association to cure anorexia and bulimia called Forum Crisalide, and Nigerian former actor George Durojaiye, aka Isaac George.
    The three were found guilty of sexually abusing young and vulnerable patients, one of whom subsequently committed suicide.
    The investigation was sparked in 2009 by the contents of the patient's diary, which revealed that the three coerced patients by telling them to dress provocatively and to submit sexually as a form of therapy, calling their favorite patients "pure-bred horses". The offenders told patients that "sexual activity was an adequate tool to overcome the inhibitions connected to their eating disorders", the Cassation judges wrote.
    The abuses took place in the Sana Vita (Healthy Life) clinic in Lugano, at a clinic in Como's Cascina Respaù, and in other private so-called clinics in 2004-2006.
    Some 400 former patients were contacted during the investigation.
    The Cassation Court upheld prison sentences of six months six years for Bernasconi, four years three months for Billari, and four years six months for Durojaiye.
    Those sentences were handed down by a Milan court of appeals on March 31, 2015.
    Billari is reportedly in prison, while the other two are abroad.