This is a newly updated addition to Galante and Follieri: The Bishop and the Con Man. See that piece for the full context.
Italian real estate developer and international playboy Raffaello Follieri spent two years diverting money from billionaire California investor Ron Burkle to fuel his jet set lifestyle and maintain his expensive Hollywood girlfirend Anne Hathaway. But was not to last. By January 2007 Burkle and finally wised up. According to FBI records (pdf) he flew a representative to New York in January 2007 to examine Follieri's "engineering reports." The Italian was out of the office and claimed to have the only copies with him. When pressed, Follieri warned Birkle's man that he "should see what happened to the last guy that crossed Follieri." Around February 13 Birkle directly confronted Follieri's $20,000 expense of a private jet between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and turned off the money.
Buying a "Unique Relationship with the Catholic Church"
Follieri went looking for a new business model. From the FBI indictment:
His new plan to build a "unique relationship with the Catholic Church" proceeded remarkably quickly. Within three weeks of the money transfer he was named a "special consultant" to the New York-based Pontifical Mission Society, headed by Monsignor John E Kozar, a priest appointed in 2001 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Eight days later, on Wednesday March 28, Kozar and Follieri announce a joint financial venture, an affinity credit card with proceeds earmarked for charity.
The next day Follieri settled on the $400,000 sale of a nondescript condo in a South Jersey beach town that had been sitting idle on the market for over six months. It was a far cry from Follieri's usual San Tropez/New York Penthouse and an unusual choice for an international playboy. The seller had recently launched phase two of a plan that would eventually call for the sale of over sixty church properties to real estate developers. Bishop Joseph Galante had bought the house a decade earlier for $114,000, earning a remarkably healthy annual return of 32%. Two nearby properties that Zillow.com identifies as "Comparable Homes" have since sold for $165,000 and $208,900.
Our Usher in the Vatican
Galante says the suggestion to first use then-26 year old Raffaello Follieri came from a 2004 phone call from a high Vatican office but now can't seem to remember just who it was who called. The FBI says Follieri's only real Vatican connection was a low level employee. Italian papers name him as Tonino Mainiero, an "usher" or "lay clerk" at what the Post identifies as a "small church within the Vatitcan." Follieri had hired the nephew of a powerful Vatican figure for his vice president but there is no indication that he had any special connection to his uncle or involvement with the Follieri Group and he seemed to have been used mostly to get a well-known Vatican name on the letterhead.
Previous negotiations between Follieri and the Diocese to buy property in Atlantic City had fallen through, but sometime around the sale of the condo, Bishop Galante loaned Follieri a priest. Diocesan spokesperson Andrew Walton has admitted the diocese was aware that Atlantic City Monsignor William Hodge spent a considerable amount of time traveling to investor meetings with Follieri, but that press reports about him being directly employed by Follieri are not true. If Walton's denial is to be believed, then the only salary Hodge received during his time working for Follieri was coming from diocesan offices in Camden.
The FBI reports that Galante's loaner priest was actively involved in the scam. They have sworn testimony that Follieri kept clerical robes of "a more senior clergyman" in his New York office and that Hodge and Monsignor John E. Kozar used them to impersonate Vatican officials to would-be investors. New reports are implying that Kozar's charity began laundering Follieri money around this time and that $6 million is still missing in a mysterious shadow company. Hodge left the country "on vacation" the same week Follieri was arrested by federal authorities in New York and has phoned in a denial that he dressed in bishop's clothes.
Read more in: Galante and Follieri: The Bishop and the Con Man
You can email confidential tips to follieri@savestmarys.net.
Italian real estate developer and international playboy Raffaello Follieri spent two years diverting money from billionaire California investor Ron Burkle to fuel his jet set lifestyle and maintain his expensive Hollywood girlfirend Anne Hathaway. But was not to last. By January 2007 Burkle and finally wised up. According to FBI records (pdf) he flew a representative to New York in January 2007 to examine Follieri's "engineering reports." The Italian was out of the office and claimed to have the only copies with him. When pressed, Follieri warned Birkle's man that he "should see what happened to the last guy that crossed Follieri." Around February 13 Birkle directly confronted Follieri's $20,000 expense of a private jet between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and turned off the money.
Buying a "Unique Relationship with the Catholic Church"
Follieri went looking for a new business model. From the FBI indictment:
By or about early 2007, Follieri took additional steps to look for new investors. Among other things, Follieri directed the production of a pitch book based on the false representations that Follieri had connections witht he Vatican and the ability to obtain church properties cheaply. The pitch book for Follieri Media, which Follieri had distributed to several potential investors, state, among other things, that Follieri Media had a "unique relationship with the Catholic Church."Starting February 28, 2007 Follieri began liquidating Birkle money he had stashed in Monaco, "transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars from two other accounts at a private bank in Monaco to a bank account in New York, New York, for the Follieri Group."
His new plan to build a "unique relationship with the Catholic Church" proceeded remarkably quickly. Within three weeks of the money transfer he was named a "special consultant" to the New York-based Pontifical Mission Society, headed by Monsignor John E Kozar, a priest appointed in 2001 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Eight days later, on Wednesday March 28, Kozar and Follieri announce a joint financial venture, an affinity credit card with proceeds earmarked for charity.
The next day Follieri settled on the $400,000 sale of a nondescript condo in a South Jersey beach town that had been sitting idle on the market for over six months. It was a far cry from Follieri's usual San Tropez/New York Penthouse and an unusual choice for an international playboy. The seller had recently launched phase two of a plan that would eventually call for the sale of over sixty church properties to real estate developers. Bishop Joseph Galante had bought the house a decade earlier for $114,000, earning a remarkably healthy annual return of 32%. Two nearby properties that Zillow.com identifies as "Comparable Homes" have since sold for $165,000 and $208,900.
Our Usher in the Vatican
Galante says the suggestion to first use then-26 year old Raffaello Follieri came from a 2004 phone call from a high Vatican office but now can't seem to remember just who it was who called. The FBI says Follieri's only real Vatican connection was a low level employee. Italian papers name him as Tonino Mainiero, an "usher" or "lay clerk" at what the Post identifies as a "small church within the Vatitcan." Follieri had hired the nephew of a powerful Vatican figure for his vice president but there is no indication that he had any special connection to his uncle or involvement with the Follieri Group and he seemed to have been used mostly to get a well-known Vatican name on the letterhead.
Previous negotiations between Follieri and the Diocese to buy property in Atlantic City had fallen through, but sometime around the sale of the condo, Bishop Galante loaned Follieri a priest. Diocesan spokesperson Andrew Walton has admitted the diocese was aware that Atlantic City Monsignor William Hodge spent a considerable amount of time traveling to investor meetings with Follieri, but that press reports about him being directly employed by Follieri are not true. If Walton's denial is to be believed, then the only salary Hodge received during his time working for Follieri was coming from diocesan offices in Camden.
The FBI reports that Galante's loaner priest was actively involved in the scam. They have sworn testimony that Follieri kept clerical robes of "a more senior clergyman" in his New York office and that Hodge and Monsignor John E. Kozar used them to impersonate Vatican officials to would-be investors. New reports are implying that Kozar's charity began laundering Follieri money around this time and that $6 million is still missing in a mysterious shadow company. Hodge left the country "on vacation" the same week Follieri was arrested by federal authorities in New York and has phoned in a denial that he dressed in bishop's clothes.
Read more in: Galante and Follieri: The Bishop and the Con Man
You can email confidential tips to follieri@savestmarys.net.