Former Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney was sentenced to jail today in Italian courts for his role in the 2007 “Spygate” sagga that saw leaked information from Ferrari to McLaren. The incident was the largest scandal in recent history in F1 that saw the regulatory body of F1, the FIA, fine McLaren 100 million dollars.
Today the Italian court sentenced Stepney to a year and eight months in prison and a 600 euro ($817) fine. It seems, according to Reuters, that the Italian legal system will actually see Stepney serve no jail time.
Reuters carries the story here:
“We are satisfied, even if my client has always denied sabotage,” his lawyer Sonia Bartolini was quoted as telling the Gazzetta di Modena website after a hearing in Sassuolo — near Ferrari’s Maranello base.
“We have to thank the prosecutor for agreeing to a plea bargain. Initially the sentence was much higher.”
Stepney was accused of not only leaking technical information to a McLaren employee but he was also suspected in attempting to sabotage Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen’s car at the Monaco race in 2007.
