How the Celebrity Surgeon Sculpted his Prey

In the January 2016 edition of Vanity Fair magazine, there is the fascinating story of "world renowned surgeon" Paolo Macchiarini and award winning NBC News Producer Benita Alexander.  Dr. Macchiarini was the subject of a piece being produced by Alexander for a two-hour NBC special called A Leap of Faith to be hosted by Meredith Vieira.  According to the story, Alexander crossed the line of journalistic ethics and became romantically involved with Macchiarini at some point during the production of the documentary, though that was just the start of the saga.  Following nearly two years of international travel, lavish vacations, gondola rides under the Bridge of Sighs, shopping sprees and storybook photos in far away places, and after the airing of Leap of Faith, things got more interesting.

(SPOILER ALERT: Click Here to read the story before continuing if you want to preserve the suspenseful ending).

(Disclaimer (being the lawyer that I am): Dr. Macchiarini has neither been accused nor convicted of any crimes and no such allegations are being made here.) 

While that disclaimer may protect me from any defamation suits from the good Doctor, it doesn't mean that Macchiarini, according to the story, didn't masterfully pull a fast one on  Alexander of true #fraudster proportions.  So artful was his work that Alexander, an Episcopalian, twice-wed (the second to a ball room dance instructor), mother of an 11-year old girl and living in New York City, actually believed that in the summer of 2015, she would be getting married by the Pope himself in front of an elite group of guests who would include President and First Lady Obama, Emperor Akihito of Japan, the Clintons, Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy and Elton John (though it would be Andrea Bocelli who would be singing during the service). 

"HAH!" you say.  "How could she possibly have believed such a ridiculous story?"  To her credit, Macchiarini, by all accounts, appears to have been a far better con man than a surgeon.  While his professional CV and the success of his "groundbreaking" work in trachea transplants may have come into question, his ability to be charming, seemingly caring, promiscuous, impulsive and in possession of a grandiose sense of self worth were never in doubt.  Neither was his apparent lack of remorse and callous disregard for his target when called out on the con. 

What's more, I routinely compare #fraudsters to our Neanderthal ancestors.  Think "kill or be killed" and a soulless, lawless existence, where every battle is planned and decided in the moment, all in support of mere survival.  The home life for Neanderthal presents interesting parallels as well.  It was Mrs. Neanderthal who ruled the domain some 60,000 years ago (a period when Neanderthal began feeding the Human DNA, eventually going into extinction some 40,000 years ago, though I digress).  Even here, Macchiarini seems to be in fear of the lady with whom he was living when confronted by Alexander's friends, much like many of the #fraudsters who I chase, most having an extremely dominant, though utterly unsuspecting wife or significant other taking care of the house and kids.

Though that's where the credit stops for Alexander.  From this point on, the con is all about her.  I'll let her tell you why: “I just didn’t want to put two and two together...I didn’t want Paolo to not be the man I believed him to be.  I didn’t want the fairy tale to end.”

Need I say more? 

Just in case, the article offers this from Dr. Ronald Schouten, a Harvard professor who directs the Law and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital: "'We’re taught from an early age that when something is too good to be true, it’s not true,' he said. 'And yet we ignore the signals. People’s critical judgment gets suspended. In this case, that happened at both the personal and institutional level...Macchiarini is the extreme form of a con man. He’s clearly bright and has accomplishments, but he can’t contain himself. There’s a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people.'"

So how does he fill that void, the need to show superiority, the need to feed his self worth, the need to be dominant over others and be accepted, all being the primary characteristics of #fraudsters and even more important than money itself?  The answer is found in one of the many axioms of my practice: Greed is the wound upon which #fraudster's pray.  While in financial crimes the desire for money drives the greed-driven disregard for red flags and other warning signs about what might be "too good to be true," here, in a non-financially motivated con, the greed is Alexander's need to find her Prince Charming (though some could argue that the lavish lifestyle influenced Alexander as much as the need for true love's first kiss).

I profess that there is no more powerful human characteristic than Belief. Belief drives a a vast range, if not also the majority, of our actions.  Belief has caused humans to do all sorts of things that otherwise seem utterly void of reason.  Simply, when we choose to believe something, we cast away from doubt and even concern.  While I will not turn this into a discussion of religion, the headlines are littered with stories of people who even kill based upon belief.  Arguably, the belief here is more simple....Alexander chose to believe the outlandish stories scripted by the good Doctor, who no doubt prayed upon the stories that Alexander was sharing about her troubled past, including having been abandoned by her mother, tossed out by her father, divorced once and in a second, unhappy marriage.  Is anyone else now seeing images in their heads of Macchiarini salivating on that bar stool in Boston’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel before diving in for the kill?  Some might even call this Road Kill.

I don't want to be without empathy here.  Alexander has had her share of struggles and I don't mean to paint her negatively.  However, I offer this matter-of-fact interpretation of her plight as a wake-up call.  Fraud exists not so much because there are people willing to do bad things but more so because there are people willing to have bad things done to them.  It's a choice to invest without due diligence.  It's a choice to ignore red flags.  It's a choice to rely on belief versus reason when deciding anything, especially where to invest or whom to marry.  It's a choice to so easily ignore the axiom "If it's too good to be true, than it probably is."  Yet this choice is made regularly, routinely, effortlessly and, most important, willingly by so many; not just "Ma and Pa" types but by large institutional and well educated people alike (look at the many experienced, well-to-do banks and investors who fell pray to some of the world's most notorious Ponzi schemers).

The #fraudster is the true expert of human behavior.  A #fraudster knows the human condition, understands the power of belief.  Our greed and personal desires are the most lethal weapons in a #fraudster's arsenal.  So long as we choose to believe in unrealistic outcomes, fraud will survive.  This is certainly not to say that we should all become un-trusting souls, eyeing each other with doubt and suspicion in our day-to-day interactions, though when it comes to investing our heard-earned money, or to being married by the Pope, perhaps then it's time for a bit more due diligence -- or at least a call to the Vatican.