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The Wacky Tale of Paul Manafort, Anne Hathaway’s Fraudster Ex-Boyfriend, and a Vatican Land Scam
‘HIGH HOPES’
Betsy Swan
Former Political Reporter
Updated Mar. 13, 2019 7:31AM ET
According to two people with knowledge of the conversations, Manafort and then-business partner Rick Davis said numerous times that they planned to go into business with a handsome Italian businessman named Raffaello Follieri, and that they expected to use his purported access to the Vatican to get a sweetheart deal on the Catholic Church’s real estate.
In 2008, Follieri pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, as well as one conspiracy count. He was sentenced to more than four years in prison. The access he claimed to have to the Vatican was part of an elaborate, intercontinental scam that made international news and generated a tabloid feeding frenzy. Federal prosecutors said the Italian businessman, who dated actress Anne Hathaway for four years before his arrest, claimed to investors that he was the CFO of the Vatican and that he would use his connections in Rome to arrange lucrative real estate deals. He claimed the Vatican was eager to sell off unused properties to raise quick cash to help offset the costs related to its ballooning child sex abuse scandals, as New York magazine noted.
A host of political power-brokers got roped into Follieri’s scheme. The Wall Street Journal reported that he became close with Clinton ally Doug Band, and offered to help Hillary Clinton court Catholic voters in the lead-up to her 2008 presidential bid. Bill Clinton even invited him on stage at a Clinton Foundation event, per New York, to thank him for a donation commitment on which he never delivered. The Italian newspaper L’Immediato reported that American super-lobbyist Tony Podesta called him “un visionario.” And Sen. John McCain drew considerable heat after celebrating his 70th birthday aboard a yacht Follieri had rented, as The Nation reported. Hathaway was on hand for the festivities.
And according to New York, Follieri was staying at his parents’ apartment in Trump Tower when he got arrested.
Now, people with knowledge of Manafort’s businesses say he and Davis also looked to get in on Follieri’s purported Vatican real-estate fire sale.
John WeaverLincoln project perv
John Weaver, a longtime Republican political operative who worked on the late Sen. McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign told The Daily Beast he heard Davis and Manafort discuss a relationship with Follieri multiple times in the years before the senator announced that bid. At the time, Weaver said, he worked on a PAC that rented office space from Manafort and Davis’s lobbying firm.
For Manafort, hope has always sprung eternal. He spent his business career chasing down far-fetched schemes, including an unsuccessful effort to buy the famed Drake Hotel in Manhattan with Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash for $850 million. He also face-planted on an investment in Ukrainian TV stations—burning through millions he borrowed from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Instead of becoming the Rupert Murdoch of the former Soviet Union, he became indebted to one of Russia’s most powerful men.
cont
https://www.thedailybeast.com/paul-manafort-rick-davis-anne-hathaways-fraudster-ex-boyfriend-raffaello-follieri-and-the-vatican-land-scam