Berlusconi: No 'steamy dealings' with teen

ROME, May 28 (UPI) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says he would have been insane to attend an 18-year-old's birthday party if he had been sexually involved with her.

The prime minister's second wife, Veronica Lario, has filed for divorce. She has said her husband "consorted with minors."

Berlusconi, speaking to reporters Wednesday, denied "any steamy or more than steamy dealings with teenagers." He said he went to Noemia Letizia's birthday party and gave her a lavish gift because of his friendship with the family. Her father is a municipal official in Naples.

''I have also said that if this were all true, I would have to resign immediately,'' Berlusconi said.

Berlusconi's five children appear to be standing by him. Marina Berlusconi, a child of his first marriage and head of much of the family business, called Lario's claims about Letizia "a mountain of lies built on nothing."

''I'm happy and proud of how I was raised and the values instilled in me by my family. I don't understand how politics should turn to judging Silvio Berlusconi as a father," said Luigi Berlusconi, one of the prime minister's three children with Lario. "They're on separate planes and should never be mingled.''