The Vati-Con Scandal involved accusations that Italian real estate developer Raffaello Follieri misappropriated an investment from Bill Clinton and billionaire Ronald Burkle meant to buy Roman Catholic churches in the United States. [1] Follieri ultimately pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in the U.S. and was sentenced to prison.
On July 15, 2008, Bishop Joseph Anthony Galante of the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, was implicated in the scandal by a New York Post article titled "A Deal with the Devil" that revealed that Follieri had bought Galante's beach house for $400,000 in 2007 shortly after Galante began the study that resulted in his 2008 announcement to sell off half of the Diocese's church properties. [2] Following disclosure of the bishop's involvement in Vati-Con, the Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey demanded "a complete halt to the Bishop’s planned church closure program".[ citation needed ] The Galante/Follieri beach house was put back on the market in 2008 and sold almost two years later for $310,000. [3]
On July 24, 2008, the New York Daily News reported that during a second raid of Follieri's apartment in New York City, the FBI had confiscated the private journals of Follieri's former girlfriend, American film actress Anne Hathaway, as part of their ongoing investigation into the scandal. Hathaway did not face any charges related to the scandal. [4]
In October 2008, Follieri pleaded guilty in Manhattan to the charges, and Federal Judge John Koeltl imposed a 4½ year prison sentence. [5] He was released on May 25, 2012, from a federal prison in Pennsylvania. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Follieri to Italy on May 25, 2012, immediately after his release from prison. [6] By 2018, Follieri had returned to being an investor and says he is once again on good terms with Burkle, who he said was among the group of investors helping him acquire 50 percent in the Foggia Calcio soccer club in Southern Italy. [7]
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway is an American actress. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Her films have grossed over $6.8 billion worldwide, and she appeared on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2009. She was among the world's highest-paid actresses in 2015.
Carmine Galante was an American Mafioso who was acting boss (unofficial) of the Bonanno crime family of New York City. Galante was rarely seen without a cigar hanging from his mouth, leading to the nickname "The Cigar" and "Lilo". He was assassinated on Commission orders in 1979 while dining in a restaurant.
Anthony J. Pellicano is a high-profile Los Angeles private investigator and convicted criminal known as a Hollywood fixer. He served a term of thirty months in a federal prison for illegal possession of explosives, firearms, and a grenade. In 2008, he began serving an additional sentence for subsequent convictions for other crimes, including racketeering and wiretapping. Several other people were also convicted of crimes associated with their involvement with his illegal activities, including his actress girlfriend Sandra Will Carradine, film director John McTiernan, Beverly Hills police officer Craig Stevens, Los Angeles police sergeant Mark Arneson, and attorney Terry Christensen.
Ronald Wayne Burkle is an American businessman. He is the co-founder and managing partner of The Yucaipa Companies, LLC, a private investment firm that specializes in U.S. companies in the distribution, logistics, food, retail, consumer, hospitality, entertainment, sports, and light industrial sectors.
Joseph Anthony Galante was an American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Latin Church diocese of Camden in New Jersey from 2004 to 2013.
The Diocese of Camden s is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It consists of 62 parishes and about 475,000 Catholics in the South Jersey counties of Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem.
The presidency of Ronald Reagan was marked by numerous scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any president of the United States.
James Galante is an American convicted felon and associate of the Genovese crime family, owner of the defunct Danbury Trashers minor-league hockey team and a defunct racecar team fielding cars for Ted Christopher, and ex-CEO of Automated Waste Disposal (AWD), a company that holds waste disposal contracts for most of western Connecticut and Westchester and Putnam counties in New York.
Anthony Indelicato, also known as "Bruno" and "Whack-Whack", is an American mobster and high ranking caporegime in the Bonanno crime family of New York City.
Philip Giaccone, also known as "Philly Lucky", was an American mobster and caporegime in the Bonanno crime family who was murdered with Dominick Trinchera and Al Indelicato for planning to overthrow Bonanno boss Philip Rastelli.
Timothy Francis Donaghy is an American former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 13 seasons from 1994 to 2007 until he was caught in a gambling scandal. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 26 playoff games.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto is a low-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Pennsylvania. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
The Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal was part of a series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in the United States that revealed widespread crimes in the American Catholic Church. In early 2002, TheBoston Globe published results of an investigation that led to the criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests and thrust the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy into the national spotlight. Another accused priest who was involved in the Spotlight scandal also pleaded guilty. The Globe's coverage encouraged other victims to come forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in numerous lawsuits and 249 criminal cases.
The sexual abuse scandal in Phoenix diocese is a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States.
Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Canada are well documented dating back to the 1960s. The preponderance of criminal cases with Canadian Catholic dioceses named as defendants that have surfaced since the 1980s strongly indicate that these cases were far more widespread than previously believed. While recent media reports have centred on Newfoundland dioceses, there have been reported cases—tested in court with criminal convictions—in almost all Canadian provinces. Sexual assault is the act of an individual touching another individual sexually and/or committing sexual activities forcefully and/or without the other person's consent. The phrase Catholic sexual abuse cases refers to acts of sexual abuse, typically child sexual abuse, by members of authority in the Catholic church, such as priests. Such cases have been occurring sporadically since the 11th century in Catholic churches around the world. This article summarizes some of the most notable Catholic sexual abuse cases in Canadian provinces.
The Bonanno crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, and in the United States, as part of the criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia.
The USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal relates to the sexual abuse of hundreds of gymnasts—primarily minors—over two decades in the United States, starting in the 1990s. It is considered the largest sexual abuse scandal in sports history.
Lawrence Gerard Nassar is an American convicted sex offender, serial child molester, and a former sports medicine physician. For 18 years, he was the team doctor of the United States women's national gymnastics team, where he used his position to exploit and sexually assault hundreds of young athletes.