Berlusconi and "Jowellgate"
Mills acted for Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the early 1990s. This has been the cause of controversy and of allegations. David Mills was involved in setting up a large number of offshore trusts for the "B Operation" as he termed Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi's operations. Mills was investigated in Italy for money-laundering and alleged tax fraud and on 10 March 2006 prosecutors in Milan asked a judge to order Mills and Berlusconi to stand trial on corruption charges. Prosecutors submitted 15,000 pages of documents to the preliminary hearing judge who will determine whether the case should go to full trial.
In February 2004, he had written to his accountants laying out a scenario where he would receive a large amount of money from the "B Operation" (Berlusconi's Fininvest) for having "turned some very tricky corners, to put it mildly" which "had kept Mr B out of a great deal of trouble that I would have landed him in if I had said all I knew".
He admitted this story to Italian prosecutors, later retracting it and claiming that the money came from someone else. One source cited was Diego Attanasio, a shipping magnate and another Italian client of Mills. Attanasio denies this story. Questions were also asked about a woman living on a council estate in London's East End who is recorded as a director or company secretary of 19 companies which Mills established on behalf of his Italian clients.
On 17 February 2009, an Italian court sentenced David Mills to four years and six months in jail for accepting a bribe from Silvio Berlusconi to give false evidence on his behalf in corruption trials in 1997 and 1998.
Read more about this topic: David Mills (lawyer)