BBC Learning English
Words in the News
21

st

October 2011

Black Widow ‘won't work for freedom’

Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2011

Page 1 of 2

bbclearningenglish.com

A few hours of work seems a small price to pay for a taste of liberty. But one of Italy's most

infamous inmates, known as the Black Widow, has rejected an offer of work in exchange for

limited freedom. She was jailed for 29 years in 1998. Mark Duff reports:

Patrizia Reggiani once said she'd rather cry in a Rolls than be happy on a bicycle. She

doesn't seem to have changed her mind.

Dubbed the Black Widow after she was jailed for ordering the murder of her ex-husband, the

heir to the Gucci family fortune, Ms Reggiani has spent most of the past 13 years at San

Vittore prison in Milan.

Judges had offered her the chance of day release, if she agreed to take a job outside the prison

walls. But Ms Reggiani, who's 63, was having none of it. She'd never worked in her life, she

told the judges, and she didn't intend to start now.

Her trial in 1998 attracted worldwide interest. It had everything: a woman betrayed by the

man she'd loved and the low-life murder of the heir to a multi-million dollar fashion fortune.

For now, though, Patrizia Reggiani, who once complained that her allowance of more than

US$630,000 a year wasn't enough to live on, will return to the comfort of her pet ferret and

her plants in her cell at San Vittore.

Mark Duff, BBC News, Milan

Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2011

Page 2 of 2

bbclearningenglish.com

Vocabulary and definitions

she'd rather

she would prefer

dubbed

given a name, usually by the media

day release

scheme that allows her to leave prison during daytime

having none of it

not accepting any of the terms offered

intend

plan

betrayed by

deceived by

low-life

not high-class

complained

expressed unhappiness about

allowance

amount of money received regularly from the person who

financially supported her

ferret

long-bodied furry mammal

More on Patrizia Reggiani:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3881031.stm

Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2011/10/111021_witn_black_widow.shtml