MILAN — Raffaele Meola, a former Union Official who worked at Milan Malpensa Airport, has been sentenced to one year and two months for sexual assault in a case stemming from a complaint filed by flight attendant Barbara D’Astolto, who reported being sexually abused in 2018. The Milan Court of Appeals handed down the sentence in the second retrial.

The case sparked controversy after the 48-year-old was acquitted at both trial and on appeal. In their rulings, the judges wrote that the woman could have resisted within “30 seconds.” The Italian Supreme Court later overturned the appeals ruling and ordered a retrial following an appeal by Deputy Prosecutor General Angelo Renna.

Renna had sought a two-year sentence before the second criminal division of the Milan Court of Appeals, presided over by Judge Enrico Manzi. At previous hearings, held behind closed doors, the woman, who is no longer a flight attendant and was represented by attorney Gionata Bonuccelli, testified again.

“The defense tried to undermine her credibility, but it emerged as strong as ever. She repeated what happened,” the attorney representing the civil party said.

In its February 2025 ruling overturning the two acquittals and ordering a retrial, the Supreme Court said that the “delay in the reaction” of the “victim” — meaning the delay in “expressing dissent” — was “irrelevant” to establishing sexual assault. On this point, the court said, case law is clear: The “surprise” caused by an assault “may be such as to overcome” a person’s “contrary will,” leaving the victim “unable to defend herself.”

Those arguments were also made in court by Deputy Prosecutor General Renna and the civil-party attorney. The judges who issued the earlier acquittals — the Busto Arsizio court in 2022 and, on appeal, the Milan Court of Appeals — had instead written that the Union Official’s conduct had not “eliminated every possibility of a reaction by the injured party,” because it lasted for “20 to 30 seconds,” a period that “would also have allowed her to leave.”

The events date to March 2018, when the woman approached the Union Official over an employment dispute. During that meeting, according to investigators, the alleged harassment and sexual abuse took place.

The reasons for Thursday’s ruling will be filed within 90 days. The judges also ordered Meola to pay the woman, now 49, €10,000 in provisional compensation.