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How 'Vati-Con' Follieri Fooled the World

Hathaway's boy toy lived large on Other People's Money

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 8, 2008 9:02 AM CDT

(Newser) – Raffaello Follieri has been sensationalized as some new kind of con man, but Anne Hathaway’s ex is actually an old archetype, Michael Shnayerson writes in Vanity Fair. Like the heroes of 19th-century social novels, Follieri is a young man from the provinces who conquered the world, got the girl—and was undone by his own ambition.

At every turn, Follieri used investors’ money and bounced checks to create the illusion that he was rich and powerful. But for all his unscrupulous antics, the charges against the 30-year-old Italian seem flimsy; most were already settled in a civil suit. “If Rafaello wasn’t dating Anne Hathaway this wouldn’t have happened,” says one source. “The US attorney doesn’t get out of bed for this sort of stuff.”

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (2)]

Actress Anne Hathaway and her boyfriend Raffaello Follieri attend the after party for the New York premiere of "Becoming Jane," July 24, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo)

Raffaello Follieri used tenuous connections to the Vatican to gain investors' confidence%u2014and the money that enabled him to live the fabulous life. (AP Photo)

US Actress Anne Hathaway and her boyfriend Raffaello Follieri arrive at a grand-gala ball in Rome, Saturday, July 7, 2007. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

In this Feb. 3, 2008, file photo, actress Anne Hathaway, right, sits with her boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, during fashion week in New York. (AP Photo)

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I didn’t think he was a con man. I thought he was delusional. - A consultant for the New York Archdiocese

He was very good at working with implications and allowing them to take a
life of their own. - A Follieri Group staffer

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How 'Vati-Con' Follieri Fooled the World