If any of you have ever wanted Anne Hathaway as your girlfriend, perhaps a good way to start is by swindling various strangers out of millions of dollars.
Traditionally, we hear that Anne Hathaway goes crazy for that sort of stuff. Swindle a few dopey millionaires out of all their cash with a scam involving the Vatican and Anne Hathaway will be tugging at your underwear like some kind of lust-demented wildebeest.
That's what Raffaello Follieri has been accused of doing, anyway. True, he's been charged with wire fraud and money laundering for it and is being kept on a staggering $21 million bail because he's such a flight risk, but it did mean that he got to see what Anne Hathaway's hooters looked like. Admittedly he could have just watched that movie Havoc instead and saved himself a potential nine-year jail sentence, but to be fair it does look quite rubbish.
Anne Hathaway hasn't been much of a hecklerspray target in the past because she just seems too squeaky clean. She's not the sort of person who looks like she'd be caught shaving off her hair in the middle of a distressing meltdown or getting ripped to the tits on drugs and smashing her car into a tree.
Luckily, though, it seems that Anne Hathaway is the sort of person who'd shack up with a man who's been charged with defrauding people out of millions of dollars by claiming he was basically the Pope's accountant. Which is handy.
Hathaway's ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri was yesterday charged with 12 counts of wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering, after he apparently conned strangers into parting with over $6 million in a dodgy catholic church property scam thought to involve dressing people up as senior clergymen to show how down he was with the Vatican. The Associated Press reports:
Bail was set at $21 million for Raffaello Follieri. Federal prosecutors said they have "overwhelming" evidence that he improperly spent up to $6 million from investors, much of it on a lavish lifestyle… Prosecutor Reed Michael Brodsky said Follieri, of Foggia, Italy, boasted of tight Vatican connections to entice investors to give millions of dollars so he could "live the lifestyle of a multimillionaire."
Because of this alleged swindling, Follieri was able to woo Anne Hathaway with his expensive apartment, dinners at the fanciest restaurants, flights in private jets and, apparently, the services of a dog-walking company. Remember, the fastest way to a girl's heart is via her dog's legs.
Although prosecutors apparently have enough evidence against Follieri to justify his $21 million bail, it was all for nothing. He and Anne Hathaway split up recently, so he'll have to fight his criminal trial alone.
As for Anne Hathaway, however, she's once again young, free, single and ready to find someone who can rock her world in a similar way to Follieri.
If we were Lou Pearlman, we'd probably be investing in some breathmints right now.