"I went full on into investigator mode as I knew he wouldnt tell me the truth," Benita said. And so I did, you know, I sat back, and even when I was tempted to ask questions, I didn't. It's a very aggressive form of brain cancer. And he's getting noticed in the medical field. . I see a woman and two kids," she said, adding that she knew about Paolo's wife in Italy. But the biopsies showed the cells were dead and that there was actually fungi growing on the plastic, he said. So this is a lot of very heady information to take in, and he basically tells me that because hes the Popes private, personal doctor, um, and because this is such a progressive Pope, who has such a forward-thinking agenda, that the Pope a) wants to thank him for all the work hes done at the Vatican and for being his private doctor, and b) wants to use us for lack of a better term, as kind of a poster couple, so that by marrying two divorcees, you know, the Pope is going to use us to sort of open the doors of the Catholic church to allow divorcees to finally get married in a Catholic church. So first it was about the wedding gown itself. So I just found him very, I don't want to say intimidating, because intimidating's not the word. The scale . You know, "You've, you've renewed my faith in love.". And that frees up Benita to go public about their relationship. It wasnt surprising being a surgeon in Italy. "I was doing a story about regenerative medicine and his name kept coming up," Benita, a New York resident, said on the podcast Dr Death: Miracle Man. And as they ride the motorcycle away from the river, the magic carpet ride takes off. But everything else, I'm planning everything, and you can't ask me any questions." You are no longer 21 !!! [00:24:07] Bob: For many months, Paolo plays his cards very close to the vest as Bo starts asking questions about the patients Paolo has worked on. As Alexander began to unravel the web of lies Macchiarini had told her, she began to wonder if the world-renowned thoracic surgeon had also misled people in his professional life. And so he took me on his motorcycle along the Illinois River. And then John Legend was supposed to be playing piano in the church. After sweeping Alexander off her feet by taking her to jet-setting and romantic locales all over the world for months, Macchiarini proposed. Benita now uses her personal story of survival and resilience to help other women who have been love conned find the road to recovery. And he was putting artificial tracheas, the windpipe, into patients. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; Researcher, Haley Nelson; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; and of course, our Audio Engineer, Julio Gonzalez. NBC News is pulling "A Leap of Faith" Meredith Vieira's documentary on controversial . But on the afternoon that she met him, a day before she was supposed to begin filming him, something happened that gave her pause. "As furious as it makes me what he did [to me and] my daughter, the thought that this is a man who has people's lives in his hands. Both have covered Macchiarini in their work. You are leaving AARP.org and going to the website of our trusted provider. I was just kind of like, um, 'cause Benita's so awesome and like, you know she was totally in love with him. Benita has since spoken up about her experiences in the media, given public speeches, and written detailed articles in renowned publications to bring awareness to the concept of love con. Benita was also the Co-Executive Producer and narrator for the 2016 TLC documentary, "Breaking the Silence," about sexual abuse. With the celebrations set to last four days, Alexander had her dress designer make four different gowns. It was killing me, and but I was also so in love with him. [00:35:21] Bob: It does sound like the kind, I mean we were talking about what, 10 gowns? She said that in November 2014, they had planned a trip to California to spend Thanksgiving with her family, "and he had been really stressed in the weeks before, and he had been talking to me for some time about how there were people that were against him, and his 'enemies.'". Benita Alexander grew up like a regular American kid. He, he had sort of slowly moved his way into my heart and I, I think I just really needed to be wrapped in love at the time, and I, yeah, we fell in love. And I said, "Well what are we going to do?" Benita Alexander is an award-winning investigative television producer, showrunner, correspondent, director, writer and narrator who has worked on a wide variety of film and TV programs. We had, we had a very good relationship still when it came to our daughter and sharing custody and you know, both of us were very focused on our daughter. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? I had tried, at one point I pushed him away, and we didn't see each other for about three months. She won a slew of honors for her work with the greatest in television reporting, including two Emmys. They got married in October 2012. Um, and so he had, we were coming back into the room after dinner one night, and I was kind of teasing him. This story is extremely personal and difficult for me to share, but the journalist in me couldnt let it be, Alexander says in the release. Uh, I think he actually appreciated being challenged to an extent. She started her career at a local news station before moving on to work at NBC in New York. With the preparations nearly finished, Benita decides to take maybe the toughest step she's ever taken in her 20-year career as a journalist. All Bo knew was that Paolo was very charming. He was put on trial after his patients reportedly suffered bodily harm during his experimental surgeries but he always denied any criminal wrongdoing. "The surgeons in Turkey tried to repair it and there were some complications," said Rosemary Pinto, a personal injury lawyer later hired by Cetir's family. Then, one morning, she read in The New York Times that Macchiarini's colleagues at the Karolinska Institute had accused him of scientific misconduct and filed a complaint with the university. Some even believed he'd win a Nobel Prize one day, according to author Stuart Ritchie. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. In the months leading up to the airing of A Leap of Faith, in June 2014, Macchiarini and Alexander went on trips to the Bahamas, Turkey, Mexico, Greece, and Italy. He wrote love notes in lipstick on her mirror and left roses on the bed in the shape of hearts. [00:42:58] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. And right about then, across the Atlantic Ocean, Bo is about to find out the real truth about Paolo too. Um, which is just something I never thought I would do, you know. [00:26:12] Bob: So while Bo follows Paolo around the world learning more about the miraculous procedures he is performing, Hannah's Story finally airs on NBC. She found out exactly what hed lied about - and she said it was extensive. I'm never viewed like that, but I was definitely like, huh? "That wasn't true. The story with making a couture gown is, you know, it goes through, gosh, a team of pattern makers, drapers, um, stitchers, sewers, hand stitchers, beading and embroiderers, lace, and all that kind of stuff. I was like, 'What is happening to Benita,'" Alexander's friend, Marian Fontana, said. [00:41:50] Benita: The day after I quit my job, I got an email from a colleague and the headline just said, "The Pope." I loved my work at NBC. And it's presented to me by Paolo, it's not even about our wedding or about our love story. She was devasted to learn all the lies told by Macchiarini. In September 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced charges against Macchiarini for aggravated assault in connection to three surgeries that he had performed at the Karolinska University Hospital, including Cetir's. Benita Alexander has been working as a Macchiarini at NBC News. Um, she was being brought to Illinois, the Children's Hospital of Illinois because a Korean nurse there had found Hannah in the hospital in Seoul and had sort of lobbied to bring her to the US. And it's a beautiful building, and it just has this feeling about it, you know, as you, it's a very special feeling too. But Bo at the time had no idea who it was. She was just like a little ray of sunshine, and a) I was just, it was so devastating when she didn't make it. And he said, he finally said, "Well, I'm going to go and talk to my contacts at the Vatican." Oh my God, um, confident. People could be dying because of this man, and therefore, I couldn't stay silent, I couldn't crawl under the covers. I didn't, you know, how do you, how do you not ask any questions, but all my friends convinced me, they said, "You know, Benita, you know he has amazing taste. In fact, we both worked for NBC in New York at the same time, but we didn't know each other then. [00:05:31] Bob: Benita worked on several stories about medical miracles, and at the time, there was one kind of medical miracle that just kept coming up. That's next week on The Perfect Scam. ID gives the viewer the opportunity to experience this along with Benita the highs and the lows and to discover, along with her, howhe lied about everything, says Henry Schleiff, Group President of Investigation Discovery, Destination America and American Heroes Channel in a press release about the documentary. It was, it was a huge change and a huge change for my daughter. Her daughter has thus been the only constant in her life. ABC News produced a tv series, The Con, that explores stories of people taken in by claims and promises that proved too good to be true, revealing how the victims were fooled and the cost of their false trust. It started with Andrea Bocelli was going to be singing in the church, because Paolo told me that his mother and Bocellis mother were friends. Macchiarini took Alexander to several romantic getaways in Europe. In 2013, she was featured in the NBC documentary "A Leap of Faith." She has won numerous awards for her work. It said he'd be in South America and that the "trip had been planned for quite some time," Alexander said. There was no evidence the Obamas had heard of him, either. She had already spent good money on her wedding preparations. But before the wedding can happen, Benita makes a . She couldn't do anything that a normal child could do. So now, if you wish to learn more about the latters narrative as well as her current inspirational standing, weve got the details for you. The third season, called "Dr. Death: Miracle Man" includes 6 episodes, along with a bonus episode that is an interview with Benita by host Laura Beil. Then, two years later, her father, whod married a neighbor, asked her to pack up her bags and leave for good. The first meeting between Benita Alexander, an award-winning producer for NBC News, and Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, the famous transplant surgeon, took place at the bar at Bostons Mandarin Oriental hotel. And so I was sort of, by becoming involved with him and by falling in love with him, I was breaking this cardinal rule in journalism that you don't get involved with a subject of your story, and even though when we did fall in love, it was, we were at the end of the production of the story, we kept it quiet because of that. Benita was also the Co-Executive Producer and narrator for the 2016 TLC documentary, Breaking the Silence," about sexual abuse. He actually brought him home on Christmas Day, and he and I are still in touch. That hideous under eye makeup , the obvious heavy Botox , that absurd VERY heavy makeup AND that over-dyed silly black hair says it all. "The headline is that it started out as a beautiful love story and it ended up as a total nightmare," said Benita. The Karolinska Institute, which had renewed Macchiarini's contract in November 2015, launched another investigation into Macchiarini and reversed its previous conclusions -- Macchiarini was indeed guilty of scientific misconduct, the Institute determined. (chuckle). Her first marriage was to fellow journalist John Noel. En Espanol "He seemed like he was the miracle man," she said. But Macchiarini showered her in flowers and jewelry. Since her romance with Paolo imploded in 2015, the brunette beauty has continued working on documentaries and docuseries. Megan Hilty on the Tony's, like she got best dress, or Debra Messing, or you know, Carli Lloyd, like the whole soccer team coming in, I'm dressing Carli Lloyd for all these, for the ESPYs, and, you know, all these amazing people that I've dressed over the years, even the Oscars and I'm, I mean it's going wow, I made it to where I love what I do. He, he was supposed to be their last hope. She is currently the voice of the true crime series "Still A Mystery" on Investigation Discovery, and she has narrated four seasons of this ongoing, multi part show. And these were all couples that were quote-unquote living in sin, you know, they had children out of wedlock, or whatever. The Perfect ScamSMis a project of theAARP Fraud Watch Network, which equips consumers like you with the knowledge to give you power over scams. For more compelling true crime coverage, follow our Crime magazine on Flipboard. But then I, and this was October of 2014, and I went and googled, the first thing I did was I went to my desk and googled, literally googled, Does the Pope marry people? And what popped up was an article from a month earlier where the Pope had just married 20 couples in the Vatican. I found him very um, hmm, he had a presence about him. So over the next few days he tells me that theres something hes never told me before, and that he is actually Pope Franciss private personal doctor. The Love Con: Directed by Star Price. [00:35:41] Matthew Christopher: Yeah, and we definitely um, we made sure that through this process, we made sure we took care of her, you know what I mean. [00:32:14] Matthew Christopher: She actually came to my private showroom which was really cool, and um, I had my whole staff there, and we had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and I was like, what is going on here? [00:31:07] Bob: But what is a couture wedding gown designer? And so we were looking into this field, and we found this doctor. Bo has begun asking questions about this medical miracle worker, so had some fellow researchers. And she, unfortunately, was born with no windpipe. At the time, Macchiarini was employed by the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Sweden. 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