Marino said in a letter addressed to Romans that his resignation was not an admission of guilt and he cited Italian law that says he could rescind it within 20 days.
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In a Facebook post earlier Thursday, Marino wrote he had agreed to pay back 20,000 euros ($22,600) in expense claims, saying that while all the money had been spent legitimately on official entertainment, he would cover the cost as a personal gift to Italy’s financially-strapped capital. However, it did not satisfy his opponents.
He insisted he was being made the fall guy for having rooted out corruption and mafia infiltration in city hall from the previous administration, and vowed to expose the truth.
He is not implicated in the alleged collusion to rig public contracts involving politicians, businessmen and criminals, but several of his councillors were forced to resign.
However, the scandal looks set to rumble on, with Rome prosecutors opening an investigation into the expenses claims, and Marino’s own allies from Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) distancing themselves from the mayor. In addition were a summer of public transportation break-downs and reports linking dozens of politicians to organized crime.
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It is the latest scandal to rock the increasingly isolated mayor and comes as Rome is struggling to prepare for the forthcoming Roman Catholic Holy Year that is expected to bring millions of visitors to the trouble-plagued city. In 2002, he resigned as the director of a transplant center in Sicily, being accused of submitting the same expenses claim to both it, and its U.S. partner the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
