Called the “Black Widow” by Italian tabloids but known as “Lady Gucci” in more noble circles, Reggini admitted that wishing her ex-husband is dead, outraged by his impending marriage to a much younger woman and an unexpected income of $ 170 million from the sale of his shares in Gucci in 1993, two years after their divorce was finalized. And she admitted that she was happy after his death, thinking that all her problems had finally disappeared.
But she maintained her innocence in the conspiracy to murder by telling the writer Sarah Gay Fordon in correspondence from prison, “Maurizio was the man I loved the most, despite all his mistakes.”
Reggie and four accomplices were convicted of murder after a five-month trial in 1998.
Born in the northern city of Vignola under modest circumstances, she and Maurizio Gucci they were both 24 when they married in 1973, despite his father Rodolfo Gucciworries of.
“Watch out, Maurizio,” Rodolfo told him, according to Fordon’s 2000 book Gucci’s house. “I received information about the girl. I don’t like her sound at all. I’m told she’s vulgar and ambitious, a social climber who thinks of nothing but money. Maurizio, she’s not the girl for you. “
To which his son replied, “Dad, I can’t leave her. I love her.”
Reggani convinced Maurizio to be more ambitious in his role at Gucci, and it was during their marriage that he became head of the company. “As a younger man, he was looking for Patricia to support him and give him the strength to stand up to his own father, but when he gained power, he felt overwhelmed by her criticism,” Fordon told New York Post. They separated in 1985.
First sentenced to 29 years in prison for paying $ 375,000 for Maurizio’s murder, the appeals court reduced her sentence to 26 years and she was released in October 2016. In 2017, according to the British edition Telegraph, the court ruled that she was legally entitled to an annual maintenance of $ 1.2 million from Maurizio’s property, plus payments from the 17 years she had been in prison, under the terms of an agreement he signed two years earlier. to be killed.
“Maurizio always loved me, he wanted me to have the best,” said Patricia People Magazine Investigates: Fashion Crimes in 2018. “But he changed completely.” She also said mysteriously, “I’m not guilty, but I’m not innocent. All the things that happened were a misunderstanding.”