Jesus PWNs Raffaelo Follieri

By admin

Anne Hathaway walked the red carpet on costar Steve Carell’s arm at the Get Smart premier in Los Angeles. Her boyfriend of four years, Italian property developer Raffaelo Follieri, was nowhere to be seen. According to Britain’s Daily Mail, the be-all end-all in celebrity gossip, the couple has split for good.

“This breakup is one in a long line of previous breakups,” assured a source close to Hathaway when asked about their relationship. “I don’t think it’s anything significant.”

But it’s doubtful that the actress is into the whole prison thing. Most would have to agree this break-up came at a good time.

On Tuesday, Follieri was arraigned and charged with six counts of wire fraud, five counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He is accused of lying to investors that he was the chief financial officer of the Vatican and that with this connection, he could obtain properties of the Catholic Church in the United States far below market value. Scandalous.

But he’s been bouncing checks as recently as April. Where’s all the dough? A suit filed by an investor last year described how Follieri was systematically misappropriating assets to indulge in massive charges for five-star lodging ($40,000-a-month duplex on Fifth Avenue according to the New York Times), pricy dog care and jet travel for himself and “his actress girlfriend.”

The actress girlfriend, it should be noted, was not at Follieri’s recent hearing. The Hollywood gossip mill has it that it’s 99 percent likely that the Devil Wears Prada star has already been interviewed by the FBI.

His bail has been set at $21 million and requires five co-signers. After burning all those bridges by conning everyone from California billionaire Ronald Burkle, affinity credit cards pioneer Howard Kessler, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú, Canadian property tycoon Michael Cooper, to Bill Clinton himself, one can’t imagine it will be too easy.

And now, per a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Follieri could be facing a sentence of life in prison.

So much for the Catholic responsibility Follieri is so fond of waxing poetic about.