CRIME HUNTER: '50 Shades of Grey' inspired kinky cop accused of killing lover

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Giampiero Gualandi was a fan of the BDSM kink-o-rama 50 Shades of Gray.

He was so inspired that the Police Commander urged his lover and underling Sofia Stefani, 33, to sign a “sexual submission contract” as in the steamy bestseller and cinematic bonkbuster.

Now, he’s on trial for murdering the ambitious young cop. Or, in Italian, aggravated manslaughter.

In the sex slave contract, which was introduced as evidence at his trial, the 63-year-old Gualandii “defined himself as master, the one who can do everything on his slave.”

In one passage, he declared: “I, lord and master, undertake to dominate the soul of my submissive.”

This was not slap and tickle after a few drinks on a Friday night.

His defence lawyers told the court in Bologna, Italy that the contract “comes from the book ’50 Shades of Grey’, one of the editorial successes of 2011. It was a game, it has no validity, no legal effectiveness, no possibility of conditioning behaviour. In sexual life, adults can do what they want.”

Unless, of course, someone ends up dead.

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Stefani was shot to death on May 16, 2024, with a shot fired from Gualandi’s service weapon in his office at police headquarters in Anzola. The bullet hit her in the head.

He told detectives that the Beretta went off accidentally during a spat with his mistress.

Detectives learned that in the days before the murder, the aspiring slave master was allegedly “a prisoner in a castle of lies that he himself had built.”

Stefani’s prints were not on the weapon.

However, a deep dive into the background of the top cop and Stefani revealed a twisted, “tormented relationship.” Stefani was young, vulnerable and suffered from the “cyclical alternation of moments of calm and tension, up until the tragic epilogue.”

As with most infidelities, the two cops’ BDSM hijinks were soon discovered by Gualandi’s none-too-pleased wife near the end of April 2024.

“Instead of admitting the facts and taking responsibility, Gualandi invented the idea that the relationship had ended some time ago and that it was Stefani who continued to stalk him,” the prosecution said.

But getting caught in the act by his wife didn’t seem to slow down Gualandi’s ardour. Soon, the pair resumed their hormone-charged hijinks.

The prosecution said: “His wife was completely unaware of it. In the phase preceding the murder, Gualandi took on behaviours of absolute duplicity, sending Stefani messages confirming the emotional and sexual relationship while, in the same minutes, he wrote to his wife that he was tormented by Stefani.”

***

BDSM is about power dynamics in the bedroom and the relationship. For Gualandi, it seemed to be about violence.

“They had a toxic relationship; he broke her teeth and left her bruised,” Stefani’s boyfriend Stefano Guidotti testified, adding violence appeared to be the cornerstone of the relationship.

“She went to the dentist, she told me, to have a tooth reattached that was fractured during a scuffle with him. The tooth had already broken before, twice, while skating and due to a dog’s headbutt,” Guidotti added.

“Once she returned home with bruises on her body, she told me there had been a heated argument with Gualandi due to a character incompatibility. Then, another time, I noticed bruises on her legs and arms, as if there had been strong finger pressure.”

The aggrieved beau said he suspected a sexual affair between the pair. Stefani said that her secret paramour made professional promises to her.

He explained that Stefani had bipolar disorder and their relationship was a roller coaster of emotions, which she struggled to manage.

“I had advised her to go to the mental health center,” he said, adding she sometimes hit him. “Then she would apologize and tell me it was because of her illness.”

Stefani’s close girlfriend, Antonella Gasparini, was troubled when she met the older cop.

“I said there was a toxic relationship between Sofia and Gualandi because it seemed to me that in some way he was using her,” Gasparini told the court.

“There was a sexual relationship between Sofia and Gualandi, and he had also made her many promises, job-related, and from a superior, this is very peculiar,” she said. “There were work advantages.”

Gasparini added: “They often argued. I knew that the relations were very tense, and there were sudden arguments, during which he once told her, ‘Look, I have a gun.’ I told her ‘be careful,’ and she replied, ‘he’s joking.’ Sofia also told me that Gualandi had once broken a tooth. ‘We argued,’ she told me, ‘and that’s how it happened.’ She told me she had slapped him.”

“She venerated and admired him.”

The trial in Bologna, Italy, continues.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HUnterTOSun