Hardly a night goes by that Karima el-Mahroug does not think of what her life would be like if she had never met Silvio Berlusconi.

Fourteen years ago, el-Mahroug, then 17 and known as the nightclub dancer Ruby Heart-Stealer, suddenly found herself at the centre of a national scandal and global tabloid frenzy. Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister at the time, was accused of paying her for sex during bacchanals he hosted at his villa near Milan in what became known as “Bunga Bunga” parties.

She denied it. He denied it. A court eventually acquitted him — and then he died. But the saga is not over for el-Mahroug, now 31 and desperate to move on.

“He messed up my life,” she said last week as she prepared to face yet another court hearing, she hopes the last. That hearing, on Monday, could determine if the case against her in the scandal will be dropped or move forward, keeping her life in suspended animation. She and other women in the case were accused of covering up for Berlusconi and receiving hush money for their alleged lies in court to protect him.

El-Mahroug acknowledges that she attended and danced at Berlusconi’s parties and returned repeatedly, receiving about 40,000 euros as well as jewellery. But she denies breaking any laws and chalks up her behaviour to her youth and need for money after a difficult childhood.

Berlusconi’s long shadow has for years affected el-Mahroug, who came to Italy as a child from Morocco.

She has spent nearly half of her life as the object of media obsession as three different trials related to Berlusconi’s parties wended their way through the justice system. All the court cases bear her nickname, Ruby.

In the first trial, Berlusconi was accused of paying for sex with el-Mahroug, a minor, and abusing his office to cover it up. He was initially found guilty, but was later acquitted because of a lack of evidence that he was aware she was underage. In the second, several of Berlusconi’s associates were convicted of aiding and abetting prostitution by procuring women for the Bunga Bunga parties.

The last trial, focused on the accusations of hush money, involves about 20 women, including el-Mahroug. The women were acquitted by a lower court on procedural grounds, but prosecutors in Milan appealed the decision. The hearing on Monday will address that appeal.

The night that changed everything for el-Mahroug, and, to some extent, for Berlusconi, was May 27, 2010, when she was taken into custody by the police on accusations of theft.

She said it was not unusual for her to be picked up by the police. She had left what she describes as a troubled household at 12 years old and had been adrift since, working odd jobs, sleeping on the street and running away from shelters, only to be routinely caught and taken back.

This time, though, she was released from custody without being sent to a shelter. Over the previous few months, she had danced in Milan’s celebrity nightclubs and then at Berlusconi’s parties at his villa. She had made powerful connections, and one of them, the Prime Minister himself, was now working to release her.

Berlusconi, who was returning from an international meeting in Paris that night amid a searing financial crisis, personally called a police official and stated, falsely, that el-Mahroug was the niece of the Egyptian President then, Hosni Mubarak. Berlusconi urged the official to accelerate her release.

When an Italian newspaper months later broke the news of her release and the ensuing investigation into Berlusconi’s actions, el-Mahroug was back in a shelter. “I got out of the house and saw my face all over the newsstand,” she said. It then emerged that prosecutors were accusing Berlusconi of paying her for sex when she was a minor, something she denies.

“I was labelled a child prostitute,” she said. “And it’s a word you carry as a mark forever.”

New York Times News Service