After two and a half months sharing a seven-and-a-half-by-eight-foot concrete cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, accused con man Raffaello Follieri will plead guilty tomorrow to federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering, the AP reports. The Italian entrepreneur was supposedly dumped by Anne Hathaway the night before his arrest; friends of his have since suggested that Hathaway—who had been involved with Follieri's foundation—may have lured Follieri back to New York from Italy to get the feds off her own back. With the plea deal, Follieri faces up to six and a half years in prison. Next month's Vanity Fair has a long juicy article about his nose-dive, and by the end you just might catch yourself feeling a tiny bit sorry for the guy. Crazy, right?
Results tagged “ronburkle”
Raffaello Follieri, the alleged con man who’s been charged with 11 counts of fraud and money laundering, has been languishing in a 7½-by-8-foot cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center for a month since his arrest. To make matters worse, his ex-girlfriend Anne Hathaway refuses to speak with him, and his longtime adviser and attorney Marty Edelman may testify against him. (Not a war-time consigliere.) A friend of Follieri – he still has one, at least – tells the Daily News, “Raffaello is doing very badly. He says people are abusing him. He’s a broken man.”
The tabloids are milking the schadenfreude out of the scandal surrounding Anne Hathaway’s ex-boyfriend Rafaello Follieri, who’s been charged with 12 counts of fraud for allegedly conning investors out of millions by posing as the Vatican’s financial manager, promising that his connections would let him up snatch up Church property for a song. Bail was set at $21 million, with the judge requiring an additional guarantee from five financially responsible persons.
Scandalous details have emerged from yesterday’s arrest of Italian socialite Raffaello Follieri, who was dragged into federal court on a 12-count complaint that includes charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering. The allegations could net him nine years in jail, and because of that bail was set at $21 million, “to be secured by $16 million in cash and property and guaranteed by five financially responsible persons,” according to the Times. Follieri was also compelled to turn over all travel documents and will have to wear a tracking anklet when he leaves his apartment, but there must be a way to get it cast in gold and engraved with his monogram.
We know from reading our Daily Mail that Hollywood starlet Anne Hathaway broke up with disgraced Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri last week, and not a moment too soon: Follieri has just been arrested (again!) on wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering charges. Earlier this month, the state attorney general’s office acknowledged an investigation into Follieri and his foundation; there is speculation that he misappropriated funds from charity in order to subsidize a lavish lifestyle with Hathaway.
More trouble for Raffaello Follieri, the fiancé of “Devil Wears Prada” star Anne Hathaway; Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating the Follieri Foundation, a charity headed by the 29-year-old Italian businessman. The Post has it that Cuomo’s office has subpoenaed financial documents belonging to the Manhattan-based foundation, which is involved with vaccinating children in developing countries, among other things.
Anne Hathaway's boyfriend surrendered to the police at the Midtown North station house to face check kiting charges. The Post reports that Raffaello Follieri's $215,000 company check bounced--and the account only had $39.98 in it.
In the NY Times' Styles section, there's an article about how there may actually be a three-year itch when it comes to relationships. Divorce lawyer Raoul Felder chalks it up to various technological changes in society: "We’re all addicted to a television-clicker lifestyle." Dr. Ruth, though, cautions against believing in a three-year itch, "How dangerous it is to say something like that. From now on, everyone who’s getting married will say it will last three years and then I will have to look for someone else.”
we knew, we just knew, that if we stuck with it long enough eventually Denton would notice and maybe give us some blog-company to play with on the weekend (no offense to you, our fair readers, but it can get very lonely here on the weekend web). But we had no. Fucking. Idea.
The Daily News continued its coverage of the Page Six gossip scandal with the emails between reporter Jared Paul Stern and one of Ron Burkle's staffers - and these emails show Stern asking where the money is! Stern, under investigation by the feds for trying to extort billionaire Burkle in exchange for more neutral coverage, claims that he was asking about an investment Burkle was supposed to make in his Skull & Bones clothing company, which Gothamist can sort of believe - the fulfillment section is totally Cafe Press, and that Burkle is manipulating the Daily News to make the Post look bad. But the big news, though it seems like non-news, that the Daily News and Times are tackling is how gossip columnists tend/seem to be nice to their friends - or people who give them freebies, fly them out for events, give their kids jobs... Anyway, Gothamist has been loving the Post-Daily News slugfest because while the two papers hate each other, one would never survive without the other.
slow news day yesterday, or the Times gave a very generous gift to Six Editor Richard Johnson on his wedding day today, devoting more than a fifth of its front page to the story, including a super classy photo of Johnson with Sharon Stone (Who doesn't like free publicity, right?). Not to mention the Gray Lady's brief history of the the gossip sheet and its lingo ("the labels it pins on the people it covers can be zingers, as the actor Alec Baldwin and the actress Cheryl Tiegs learned when Page Six dubbed him a 'bloviator' and her a 'superannuated supermodel.'") and a look at Ron Burkle the California billionaire who opened this Pandora's box.
This a very good day in the Daily News newsroom, while it must be more of a bummer at the Post's offices. News that a NY Post gossip writer has been investigating for trying to extort a billionaire mentioned in Page Six has turned into Christmas in April for the Daily News. (You can read the NY Times' article, as they are somewhat less invested in the story.) According to the Post's statement on its website, Jared Paul Stern (called a "freelance reporter who sometimes worked two days a week" by editor in chief Col Allan) tried to extort over $100,000 from Ron Burkle, investor, big time Democratic party donor and friend of Bill Clinton, in exchange for not featuring stories about Burkle in the paper; according to the feds' tapes, Stern even tried to get Burkle to invest in his clothing line! That's Page Six chutzpah right there.


