Claudio Vitalone was tried in Perugia with
Giulio Andreotti, Sicilian Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti and others, on charges of complicity in the murder of journalist Carmine Pecorelli (assassinated in Rome on March 20, 1979). He was acquitted in 2003, along with his co-defendants, by the Italian supreme court for not having committed the crime.