The Vati-Con Scandal involved accusations that Italian real estate developer Raffaello Follieri misappropriated a $50 million investment from

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and billionaire

Ronald Burkle Ronald Wayne Burkle (born November 12, 1952) 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, ...

meant to buy

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churches in the

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. 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 Joseph Anthony Galante (July 2, 1938 – May 25, 2019) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Diocese of Camden in New Jersey from 2004 to 2013. He previously held several positions as a bishop in Tex ...

of the

Diocese of Camden The Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden is a Roman Catholic diocese of the Latin Church in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It consists of 62 parishes and about 475,000 Catholics in the Southern Jersey counties of Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumbe ...

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, was implicated in the scandal by a ''

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'' 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. 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". The Galante/Follieri beach house was put back on the market in 2008 and sold almost two years later for $310,000. On July 24, 2008, the ''

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'' 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

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, as part of their ongoing investigation into the scandal. Hathaway did not face any charges related to the scandal. In October 2008, Follieri pleaded guilty in

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to the charges, and

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imposed a 4½ year prison sentence. He was released on May 25, 2012, from a federal prison in Pennsylvania. The

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deported Follieri to

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on May 25, 2012, immediately after his release from prison. 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.

References

External links

* — criminal complaint * {{cite news release , url = https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nys/pressreleases/October08/follieriraffaellosentencingpr.pdf , date=2008-10-23 , title = Raffaello Follieri Sentenced to Four and a Half Years in Prison for Fraud and Money Laundering , publisher=United States Attorney, Southern District of New York , access-date=2022-12-08 , url-status=live , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170219185607/https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nys/pressreleases/October08/follieriraffaellosentencingpr.pdf , archive-date = 2017-02-19 2008 crimes in New Jersey 2008 in New York City Bill Clinton Finance fraud Scandals in Christian organizations