L'Espresso magazine set off a storm by quoting Tutino as suggesting to Crocetta that former health councillor Lucia Borsellino should be "eliminated" like her father, the anti-mafia judge murdered by the Cosa Nostra in 1992. The theory that a bug may have caught the conversation "is only one of the many pieces of bullshit that have been referred to me as a hypothesis for what happened," Crocetta said,"among the many rumours circulating there also is this one.
That's all." Crocetta, the first openly gay governor of Sicily, claimed he had not heard the alleged remark but suspended himself from his position after the furore. Italian media have reported Tutino carried out "abdominal lifting" on Crocetta.