The Massachusetts native who helped found controversial wind-energy developers Cape Wind and First Wind expressed surprise late last week at news that his one-time partner in a separate wind-energy company in Italy has been arrested and charged with fraud.

"I read about it in the papers, and I was very surprised," Brian Caffyn said from Hong Kong, where he is now building wind-energy farms in China and the Philipines.

"I know of no fraud with (former partners) Oreste (Vigorito) and IVPC," said Caffyn, a Cape Cod native and Babson College graduate.

IVPC is Italian Vento Power Corp., a company that Caffyn, 50, once owned with Vigorito, a well-known Italian soccer club president. The pair worked together for seven years in Italy and even lived next door to each other for a time.

Last week, the Italian finance police arrested Vigorito, his Sicilian business associate Vito Nicastri and two others, according to the Financial Times.... [continue via Web link]