Italy's most terrible tragedy in modern times has passed a critical judicial milestone: Giovanni Castellucci, the former CEO of Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi), was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the first instance for the 2018 Morandi Bridge collapse, which killed 43 people. Castellucci, who is currently serving a sentence for the 2013 bus tragedy on the Acqualonga viaduct in Avellino, was the primary defendant in a significant trial that involved 57 individuals, including company executives, engineers, and government supervisory officials. The courtroom debate highlighted a clear systemic breakdown in concession infrastructure management and public monitoring. The prosecution proved how ASPI's top management consistently cut maintenance budgets for years with the sole intention of inflating profits and corporate dividends, thereby delaying reinforcing work on Pier 9, which eventually collapsed. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, claimed that the collapse was caused by an initial, unseen construction fault dating back to the 1960s that was difficult to identify at the time. For citizens, this 12-year sentence, combined with those handed down to other top managers and an influential director of the Ministry of Transport, provides a long-awaited, however partial, sense of justice. The accident, which occurred in broad daylight during a severe summer storm, broke trust in the private highway concession system, resulting in massive corporate reorganization and an ongoing debate about the safety of critical national infrastructure.