ROME- Former tv anchorman Emilio Fede is under investigation on charges of using fake pornographic photos of media executives to try and extort a bigger pay-off, police said Friday.

 Officers in Milan seized the photos from the home of Fede's former personal trainer, Gateano Ferri, a suspected accomplice in the affair. The photos were mocked up to resemble senior managers of the Mediaset company owned by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who made Fede a household name when he anchored for many years the main TG4 evening news programme notorious for its obsequious coverage of Berlusconi.

 Ferri already had come to police attention when he provided a compromising audio file of Fede's activities in providing under age prostitutes for Berlusconi's 'Bunga bunga' sex parties at his villa in Arcore. 

  The genesis of the latest probe goes back to March 28, 2010, when Fede received a letter from Mediaset boss Luigi Motta's attorney, Pasquale Straziota, unexpectedly firing Fede from his highly-paid anchorman role at Tg4. Fede, furious, allegedly sought to intimidate Straziota by showing him promiscuous and pornographic (falsified) photos of several managers of Mediaset, Motta included.

 The photos disappeared until they reemerged during the summer of 2014, when Ferri, tired of Emilio Fede, decided to give the police an audio file about Fede’s comments on Berlusconi and Ruby. Subsequently, during a thorough search of Ferri's house, the police found the photos in question. 

 From a first technical examination, those photos seemed falsified. Many of those portrayed Mario Crippa, Head of the Press Office of Mediaset, together with a transsexual, but there also are fake images of other members of the multimedia company such as its president Fedele Confalonieri.

 Although the first examination proved the photos were false, the Milan Prsecutor's office is now predisposing a second examination that would give a better idea about this complex conundrum. 

 Meanwhile, there are many questions to be answered. Why did Fede want to extort Crippa? Is it because he believed Crippa was to blame for firing him? Did Fede receive a “payoff” or did he receive one that was not enough for him?

 According to the evidence, it is possible to presume that the former TG4 anchorman planned to use those falsified photos in order to get some personal advantage and, perhaps, a consistent profit.

 Ferri, meanwhile, denies having anything to do with the photos.