Burlesque Dancer Says She Entertained Italian Prime Minister While Dressed as...Obama

Strange accusations and details have been leaked out during the trial of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Reuters reports that one of the young women who attended Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" parties said during her testimony Friday that she dressed up as a burlesque version of President Obama and prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, to entertain the former prime minister.

Berlusconi is on trial facing charges that he paid then-17-year-old Karima El Mahroug for sex in 2010, and then abused the powers of his office by getting her freed from police custody after she had been arrested for sex. Berlusconi denies the charges but resigned from his position in November 2011.

During court on Thursday, one witness said she was told the 75-year-old former prime minister paid for sex with a woman during a party at his luxury villa outside Milan, and on Friday another witness testified on the audacious alleged activities of Berlusconi while prime minister:

In testimony during a trial against the 75-year-old Berlusconi on charges of paying for sex with an underage prostitute, Marysthell Polanco said she had also dressed as prosecutor Ilda Boccassini.

Boccassini, known as "Ilda the Red" because of her hair color and what Berlusconi says is her communist political sympathies, is one of the prosecutors in the ongoing trial.

"I dressed up as Boccassini with a toga to make him laugh, and also as Obama," Polanco told the court.

Polanco, a striking 28-year-old from the Dominican Republic, said the parties were innocent fun accompanied by burlesque, but not pornographic, entertainment.

Reuters reports that Berlusconi claims his parties were "elegant, convivial dinners." Prosecutors say hoards of show girls and aspiring starlets received cash and other gifts for taking part in sex games at his Milan home. The Daily Mail notes that in Italy, the age of consent is 14. However, paying a woman below the age of 18 for sex is seen as underage prostitution and punishable by up to three years in jail.