"We had to clear her throat basically every four to six hours, sort of 24 hours, seven days a week," said Oscar Simonson, a cardiothoracic surgeon who worked at the Karolinska Institute and its affiliated hospital at the time. Meanwhile, the investigation into Macchiarini's professional life was ramping up -- the Karolinska Institute was investigating whether he'd fabricated aspects of his medical research. The way he used stem cells with his plastic tracheas would eventually develop into something quite extraordinary where you could use stem cells to target organs or other areas of the body where the, where there was a medical problem. As a journalist, Alexander knew she couldn't get involved with the subject of her story. She started her career at a local news station before moving on to work at NBC in New York. Three months later, the Karolinska Institute ruled that while Macchiarini did not always rise to the level of its standards, he had not committed scientific misconduct. And so I thought, okay, maybe its not as crazy as it, as it sounds. Macchiarini denied the accusations coming from his colleagues at the Karolinska Institute to Alexander, and she doubled down on supporting Macchiarini. His six papers on the transplant surgery were retracted. I, I thought it was ridiculous. 'People Magazine Investigates' : Tracking Down the Man Who Allegedly Killed Mom of Two Joy Hibbs in 1991, Arrest Made in Beloved Mother's Cold Case Murder and Prosecutor Credits 'People Magazine Investigates', 'Hiding in Plain Sight': All About Jimmy Savile, Disgraced Royal Confidante Featured in Netflix Doc, 'People Magazine Investigates' : Inside Decades-Old Disappearances of 5 People Along the Snake River. 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.'". During her investigation into Macchiarini, Alexander hired private investigators in the U.S. and Italy. And I made it to this point. Benita Alexander-Noel was born on April 21, 1966 in Australia. You know, part of it is you meet so many different people that you would never meet otherwise, but when you can tell a story that actually makes a difference in someone's life, that, to me, that's one of the most beautiful things about journalism. Dashing, successful and charming, Macchiarini, she thought, was the perfect man for her. 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. Creating artificial body parts. Her colleague had sent an article that said the pope would not be in Rome, or even Italy, on the day of their wedding. In 2013, she was featured in the NBC documentary "A Leap of Faith." She has won numerous awards for her work. [00:20:06] Benita: We had kind of quietly gotten engaged, but we weren't telling anybody um, because I mean the complicated thing about this is that there's a sort of unwritten rule in journalism that everybody understands, that, you know, there's, there is a line you just don't cross a kind of sacred line where you don't, you can empathize with a story subject, you can sympathize, but you don't become personally involved with a story subject for, for the reason, obviously, that your objectivity could be compromised, right. It hired Bengt Gerdin, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, who spent six months examining some of Macchiarini's papers for evidence of research misconduct and in May 2015 determined that he was guilty, writing in his report that Macchiarini had made false claims about his patients' conditions improving, failed to report severe complications in some patients and made it seem as if some patients had been healthier for longer than they'd actually been following their surgeries. She had spent her entire little life in the hospital, never left the hospital because she had a tube down her throat just to live. Among the high-powered clients who Macchiarini claimed were on this network were the Clintons, the Obamas and even Pope Francis. "It was the weirdest thing," Alexander said. And we got involved and started doing the story, and it got very intense. After Cetir's surgery, doctors say she had to undergo an additional 191 surgeries for other complications. Because the, in itself, more gowns were added into the wedding. But at this point, they're just questions. He was incredibly generous with them as well. [00:08:14] Benita: But we, we started looking into him, and then he was about to do a transplant on this beautiful, beautiful little toddler, um, her name was Hannah, from Seoul, South Korea. [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." He actually brought him home on Christmas Day, and he and I are still in touch. 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. After sweeping Alexander off her feet by taking her to jet-setting and romantic locales all over the world for months, Macchiarini proposed. She is honestly proud of how far she has come (as she should be), and its evident shell never let anything or anyone take this journey/narrative away from her. Alexander was assigned to work on the documentary about Paolo Macchiarini who has considered a pioneer in organ transplant. [00:37:05] Benita: Everything was very, very secretive, and because the Pope was doing this, um, and Paolo told me that the Vatican would not even announce it until the day of our wedding so that the news didn't leak out. [00:02:26] Bob: I remember walking into 30 Rock thinking it was the equivalent of walking into Yankee Stadium or something. We have somebody who has been brave enough to share something thats already humiliating and devastating. Benita Alexander is a strong, independent, intelligent, warm, and loving woman who thought she found her love connection with a man that swept her off her feet, much like prince charming! I mean it was crazy. In the meantime, please feel free With Whoopi Goldberg filling the narrators seat, the series kicks off with the story of Paolo Macchiarini, a former world-renowned thoracic surgeon now known for research fraud and his strange involvement with an unsuspecting producer by the name of Benita Alexander. Eventually, she died. We were sitting together on the, on the plane, and I just sort of started pouring my heart out to him, and he was a very good friend. You know he; he was sort of like Mr. She said she later sent a lengthy text message to him, and received a single-word response: "Wow! 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. Every time he took me on a trip, he just delighted in these, these big, over the top, elaborate surprises. Benita graduated magna cum laude from Wayne State University in Michigan, with a B.A in journalism. It defeats the point, Benita recently said. [00:32:33] Matthew Christopher: (laugh) She said to me as I um, she said to me, "Well, Matthew, (or team)" she goes, "Well, I'm getting married by the Pope." But Benita's intuition overtook her and she hired a private investigator to look into the surreal wedding. Among several lies, Macchiarini told Alexander, one of those was Pope Francis officiating their wedding. On what was supposed to be the day of her wedding, Alexander flew to Rome, where she eventually met others who'd kept their travel plans. While still trying to care for Cetir, Corbascio said his team found that Macchiarini had exaggerated the effectiveness of his surgeries and falsified data to make the surgeries seem more successful than they were. You know, all these celebrities were coming. Where is Benita Alexander now? She's a star producer for NBC News in New York, working alongside Meredith Viera creating primetime TV specials. View this post on Instagram In February, 2021 it was featured as a two-hour special on ABCs 20/20. Her story is now featured as the third season of Wondery's hit podcast, "Dr. Emmy Award Winning . He traveled to Illinois to operate on a Korean toddler who was born without a trachea and who was going to be the youngest person to ever receive an artificial one. People could be dying because of this man, and therefore, I couldn't stay silent, I couldn't crawl under the covers. I was so conflicted about it. [00:01:28] Benita: I grew up in Australia, and I had an uncle, my mother's brother, who worked for Radio Free Europe. Elton John was going to be performing. We had been divorced for a couple of years at that point and for three years, and he was diagnosed with glioblastoma which is a very, there's no good kind of cancer, no good kind of brain cancer, but the, you know, the outlook is not good, you know they, they kind of give someone two years at the most. Before their wedding, the couple visited Italy, where Alexander asked Macchiarini to show her where their wedding celebrations would take place. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try I didn't know what to think. And after he left, I said to my parents, that's what I'm going to do when I grow up. Hearings are expected to begin in 2022. Yeah. I want, I just want to get the job done. The true tale of the love affair between award-winning investigative producer Benita Alexander and world-renowned surgeon Paolo Macchiarini. And there are special considerations now that the wedding is going to be at the Vatican, so she asks the store how she can get in touch with the designer? To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. With the celebrations set to last four days, Alexander had her dress designer make four different gowns. [00:15:28] Bob: As Hannah's story becomes more intense, the news on Benita's ex-husband, John, gets worse. 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. And he was putting artificial tracheas, the windpipe, into patients. 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. Um, (laugh) I was uh, in my 40s. Macchiarini and Benita quickly started planning an extravagant wedding, she said. Um, made dinner, and did all this, and then we were discussing and showing fabrications and doing sketching and then like, you know, where were we going to begin? Instead, he says their underlying health conditions were fatal and may have been a factor in their deaths. By clicking Accept All Cookies, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Macchiarini took Alexander to several romantic getaways in Europe. [00:24:37] Bob: Paolo is a natural subject for a documentary film. If you want to tell somebody's story well, it, it helps if you can really tell it from their perspective. [00:06:46] Benita: And he was, as I said, called the super surgeon, and he was the pioneer in this field. 5 Journalist Benita Alexander (right) has revealed chilling clues that disclosed her lover and famed surgeon Paolo Macchiarini as a "romance scammer" Credit: Instagram / loveconned 5 Give it to me. Meanwhile, the doctors were still trying to save Cetir's life. And I, I think at least that it makes me a better writer and a better journalist. "When I started reading specifically the papers that Paolo himself had written, then we could quite quickly come to the conclusion that what was written in the papers was not what was going on in reality," Corbascio said. Exploring the troubling tales of people manipulated by claims and promises that proved too good to be true, it reveals how the perpetrator fooled their victims and made them pay the price for their misplaced trust both emotionally and financially. I loved my work at NBC. Read More: Where Is Paolo Macchiarini Now? [00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam. She said Macchiarini had told her that for their wedding, the Vatican had offered them the pope's summer residence in the Italian town of Castel Gandolfo. ", Jupiter and Venus appear to 'kiss' in the sky, What is graupel? ET. [00:17:51] Bob: Their relationship blossoms quickly. [00:30:34] Bob: Now your wedding is a cause. [00:17:35] Benita: Around this time that my ex-husband, John, passed away, we became romantically involved. After relocating to New York, Benita worked for NBC and was featured in NBC's documentary "A Leap of Faith" in 2013. 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. [00:36:55] Bob: Benita, the TV producer, is very used to managing all the details of a big event. And Paolo never talks about his personal life. And I think I was even blushing. Yeah. None of the promises Alexander said her fianc Paolo Macchiarini had made for their wedding day would come true. And uh I decided to, to take his favorite flowers, birds of--, bird of paradise, and I ended up going to a flower shop and getting three birds of paradise; one for me, my, one for my daughter, and one for John, and Paolo um, loved motorcycles, and we had been shooting him on a motorcycle. Benita and Macchiarini's wild relationship was featured in a special episode of ABC's 20/20 on Friday. again. But as the wedding planning continued, Alexander's fianc became increasingly embroiled in work-related issues. He was speaking at a conference in Boston, and we went there to interview him, sort of ahead of Hannah coming to the US, about his work and about Hannah. The Korean girl that had undergone Macchiarini's procedure in Illinois, whose story Alexander had been sent to cover, had died in the time following the surgery. "He didnt know Pope Francis, he wasnt his personal doctor.". Oh, and a dance gown too, that was crazy fun. In the course of that operation, the surgeons had nicked her trachea. You know this man adores you. And I was really wrestling with all of it. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? And so we were looking into this field, and we found this doctor. I mean it got to the point where he loved to surprise me, everywhere we went. Are you new to podcasts? Lindquist's three-part documentary series "The Experiments" began airing just over a week after the damning Vanity Fair article was published in early January 2016. Why don't you, can you just for once sit back and let somebody else take over, just let him, let him take it over." But on the afternoon that she met him, a day before she was supposed to begin filming him, something happened that gave her pause. This was holy cow. And so there was a lot of palpable excitement about this wedding, you know, people were really eager and excited for this wedding. Benita has to keep a secret. "None of these people were coming," Benita said she tragically discovered. Benita Alexander thought she had found her modern day Prince Charming. [00:31:07] Bob: But what is a couture wedding gown designer? If your response is to point a finger at a victim, thats really sad. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. The documentary includes never-before-seen footage and photos and shows Alexanders search for the truth after such a shocking betrayal of the heart. And when I looked at the email, there was an article, and it was an article about the fact that the Pope was not even going to be in Rome on July 11th, 2015, he was going to be in South America. [00:42:33] Bob: When Benita comes to her senses, she switches back into investigative reporter mode, and decides to find out the real truth behind Paolo. He told her opera singer Andrea Bocelli would be singing in the church during their wedding and that John Legend would be playing the piano at their ceremony. (chuckle). ", "As devastated as I was and as much as I wanted to crawl under the covers and hide and stay there, I knew I couldn't fall apart," she said. [00:35:21] Bob: It does sound like the kind, I mean we were talking about what, 10 gowns? The Love Con: Directed by Star Price. I didn't even, I, I, I stopped in hesitation. And that was the moment I just thought, oh, I'm, I'm falling for this man, you know, and I just, I just sort of melted into his arms. And a very, very good listener and was giving me very wise, sage advice, you know, about all these questions; what to tell her, how to tell her, and I was sort of soaking it all up, and I was very touched by the fact that this man seemed so incredibly altruistic. Benita Alexander's documentary chronicles her fairytale romance with a celebrity surgeon that turned into a scam. The university even cited some of the whistleblowers, reprimanding them for their participation in some of Macchiarini's papers. I was just giddy with happiness. And it's, I was proud to work there. She was even more stunned when she began to realize that so much of what Macchiarini had told her about his personal and professional life was a lie. You could uh, train stem cells so that, and then inject them into the body and the stem cells would do the work, the surgery, not the knife. [00:39:38] Matthew Christopher: Yeah, I mean we were going through fittings, we were going through the process of um getting things together. [00:34:26] Matthew Christopher: You put your, I am going to make the most gorgeous dress you've ever seen. And Paolo had said to me, "You, you need to find a way to say good-bye to him," and he said, "I'll help you." The scale . I don't know if I was nervous. Alexander felt compelled to cancel the wedding, yet while she tried to figure out the extent to which Macchiarini had lied, she said she let him think they would still marry one day. So just under two months before the wedding, and it was just difficult. Hosted by Benita Alexander. "The outcry was such that the Karolinska Institute had to do something," said Ritchie. The latter refers to his misconduct that led to the deaths of several patients. I mean I, I loved NBC. This is totally different. Maybe help me, help with the invitations 'cause I don't want to deal with that. She soon discovered that as she lived an apparent fairy tale romance -- with someone who not only seemed to care for her and her daughter but also lavished her with expensive gifts and trips -- others were already searching for the truth about Macchiarini. Four days, Alexander 's fianc became increasingly embroiled in work-related issues somebody 's well... Shocking betrayal of the promises Alexander said Cetir 's life so just under two months the. [ 00:30:34 ] Bob: but what is graupel thing, '' said... And a dance gown too, that was crazy fun stopped in hesitation of those was Pope,... Over the world for months, Macchiarini told Alexander, and a dance gown too, that was fun!, successful and charming, Macchiarini proposed I are still in touch remember... Podcast, `` Dr. Emmy Award Winning the job done Macchiarini to show her their... 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