Couple charged with extorting Berlusconi

ROME, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- An Italian healthcare entrepreneur and his wife were charged Thursday with extorting money from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Prosecutors in Naples say Giampaolo Tarantini and his wife Angela Devenuto received 500,000 euros (more than $700,000) from the prime minister, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Tarantini has said he supplied women for Berlusconi and he allegedly threatened to say the prime minister knew the women had been paid, the weekly magazine Panorama said last week.

The couple were arrested in Rome and transferred to Naples.

Berlusconi denied doing anything wrong and said he was simply trying to help the couple out.

"I helped a person and a family with children that found themselves and find themselves in very serious economic circumstances," Berlusconi told Panorama.

Prosecutors taped a telephone conversation between Berlusconi and another extortion suspect in July in which Berlusconi said he wants to leave Italy.

"In a few months I am leaving, I am leaving this sh-t country which makes me sick, that's it, enough," Berlusconi said.