Goldberg: Tonight, the honor of your presence
is requested at a fairy-tale wedding
without the happy ever after.
♪
take an award-winning journalist...
That was truly being swept off my feet.
Macchiarini: This is our cave of love!
Goldberg: ...A world-famous surgeon
with a george clooney vibe...
I love you. So very much.
[ smooches ]
goldberg: ...Plus all his so-called "friends"...
Benita: Andrea bocelli, john legend,
then it was elton john.
Even the pope?
Benita: I'm not joking -- we're getting married by the pope!
[ laughs ]
are you kidding me? I said, "that's nuts!"
you're not even catholic.
-Whoa! -I was saying, "what?"
what the hell is going on?
Oh, my god, what if this is all a lie?
Goldberg: I'm whoopi goldberg, and this is "the con."
♪
[ monitor beeping ]
♪
[ choir singing ]
it's deep into a 12-hour
groundbreaking surgery in sweden.
The lead surgeon is italian doctor paolo macchiarini,
from the prestigious karolinska institute.
That's the one that hands out the nobel prize in medicine.
Dr. Macchiarini is replacing a patient's trachea
with a plastic tube
that's seeded with the patient's own stem cells.
Woman: He is making headlines as the first surgeon ever
to perform a synthetic organ transplant.
♪
goldberg: Halfway around the world, in new york city,
a single mother with a young daughter
has absolutely no idea that dr. Macchiarini
is about to radically change the course of her life, too.
♪
freeman: Benita was a television producer in new york city.
She loved her job.
She was at the top of her game.
The two that she has questions about,
just get back to me about those.
This girl works a zillion hours and never tires
and is so committed to her work
but so committed to her friends
and so committed to her daughter.
Cumba: She's always been making sure that
everything she does has a a-plus on it.
Tom: She is always done up very glamorous,
but you don't always expect someone to look like that
to be so warm and loving and giving.
Goldberg: Benita is assigned to work on a documentary
about paolo macchiarini's next surgery.
That's right, good girl.
Benita: We were following a story of a toddler from korea
who was being brought to the u.S.
She was going to be the youngest person ever
to get one of these artificial tracheas.
It was an exciting story.
Just reading about him,
you really got the sense from him
that he wanted to help people, that he wanted to help humanity.
Reporter: A breakthrough --
a report that a doctor has found a way to grow a new windpipe.
A surgical first that could offer new hope.
All these studies are ongoing. This could be the future.
Goldberg: His nickname is the "super surgeon,"
a cowboy of sorts on the cutting edge of science,
pushing the limits of what anyone thinks is possible
with organ transplants.
Lindquist: He was basically a wonder-child.
♪
incredibly successful.
He was very much sought after internationally.
Benita: Somebody in the office joked very early on
that he was a george clooney look-alike.
But did I think he was gonna be a part of my life?
No. Absolutely not.
♪
we met the afternoon before
we were gonna sit down and interview him.
And it was -- it was the weirdest thing.
He comes around the corner. He looks right at me.
And in that second, something happened.
I mean, I got this sort of chill through my body.
Like there was some sort of electric spark.
And I remember in my head thinking,
"what the hell was that?"
I'm saying to myself,
"okay, whatever this is, like, don't think about it."
I think the thing that was always a question mark to me
was my personal life.
I had recently been divorced from my husband of 12 years,
who is the father of our daughter.
It was a messy divorce, and it was difficult.
I had a rebound relationship with a lovely person,
but I wasn't ready to be in another serious relationship.
I was just kind of putting one foot in front of the other
and getting through.
I've always been a workaholic.
So that's always been my refuge.
When paolo and benita first met,
her ex-husband had brain cancer.
♪
and it was heart-wrenching.
Benita: The prognosis was awful.
And it was just really difficult.
I knew I was gonna have to tell my daughter
that her dad was dying.
I couldn't even fathom how to do it.
She was only nine.
Cumba: It was very strenuous
because she's trying to hold it together for her job.
She's trying to hold it together for her daughter.
She's trying to hold it together
for everybody and everything else except herself.
♪
benita: Paolo was a really good listener.
He and I started going to dinners,
and I was kind of pouring my heart out to him
about all this stuff.
He gave me really sage, solid, kind advice.
He was really comforting and really helpful,
you know, during that period at a really critical time.
Benita: I needed someone to lean on.
Goldberg: Benita is extremely vulnerable.
As her ex-husband is dying,
paolo was there to comfort her as she grieves.
What began as a friendship is becoming much deeper.
And one day when she is particularly sad,
everything changes.
He hugged me.
And I didn't resist.
And it wasn't just a quick hug.
There was something really sort of intense about it.
I remember thinking, ah, you know,
"I'm falling for this guy."
that was the moment I knew.
That marked the beginning of our romantic involvement.
Goldberg: But it's complicated!
Benita says paolo tells her he has been separated for years.
A divorce is looming, but it's still not legal.
And benita -- she's still a reporter
doing a documentary on this guy.
Benita: It was really difficult because I was falling in love
with somebody that I was doing a story about,
which you are not supposed to do.
If you get involved with somebody,
your objectivity could be compromised.
And I agonized about it.
I was very surprised to see her so focused on this guy.
And so I figured he must be special
to kind of take that risk.
Did I compromise my journalistic integrity? Yeah.
I really didn't know what to do.
Goldberg: That's when paolo suggests
she accompany him on a long weekend in Italy.
And against her better judgment, she agrees.
♪
benita: The whole trip was so romantic.
I mean, just over-the-top romance.
Everything. The food, the flowers, the dinners.
♪
he rented a private boat,
and we took day trips to these islands.
That was truly being swept off my feet.
Cumba: It was almost like a scene
from any romantic love story that you could imagine,
he did it.
♪
♪ I finally found the one ♪
benita: This started out as a beautiful love story.
It turned into a nightmare.
At some point, this thing had to implode.
♪
benita: I never had this fantasy of prince charming coming in.
I love you.
Men aren't prince charming, and women are not cinderella.
Tarnopol: None of us are.
He was the closest thing we ever could imagine
to prince charming.
He came into benita's life, and he was gorgeous,
had an amazing career, spent money on her.
[ laughs ]
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
Benita: It was a constant shower of flowers and gifts.
He would leave notes in lipstick on my bathroom mirror.
He gave me a lot of really beautiful jewelry.
Tarnopol: He seemed to have unlimited money.
To drop $10,000 on something was nothing for him.
He would spend money like you would not even believe --
the food, the roses on the bed, shaped like a heart.
♪
goldberg: And then there are the trips --
whisking her away on long weekends around the world.
We went to london, we went to mexico, russia,
sweden, puerto rico, the bahamas twice, greece.
Love you.
Goldberg: Benita and paolo document their relationship,
taking pictures and videos.
Her life suddenly went from very down-to-earth
to this kind of glamorous, almost celebrity lifestyle
that I was like, "what is happening to benita?"
cumba: Paolo kind of gives you
that george clooney type of feel,
that salt-pepper gray, sexy kind of guy.
He spoke -- what? -- Six lang--
-seven languages. -Seven languages.
[ speaking in foreign languages ]
he reminds me of that beer commercial,
the one with the most interesting man in the world.
He is the most interesting man in the world.
I just wanted to send you a few loving good-morning words
and a lot of kisses to my princess.
Tarnopol: I mean, he was even concerned about her friends.
I had breast cancer, and he called me about,
you know, what to do with my surgeries.
Benita had a sparkle in her eye. She was blushing a lot.
She had finally met
the person that she was supposed to be with.
♪
goldberg: When benita trusts paolo enough
to let him meet her daughter,
her daughter falls for him, too.
Benita: We were his princesses.
It was like living a fairy tale.
Incredible. Goldberg: They're becoming a family,
and he takes them both on trips.
Wow!
Benita: He took us to the bahamas.
♪
macchiarini: Wow!
Benita: And he was amazing with her.
It was the first time since her dad died
I had seen her seem happy.
And I distinctly remember thinking,
"if anyone is going to step in to try and fill her dad's shoes,
he's a great guy to do that."
♪
this was our first christmas together.
I love christmas.
Hi.
Macchiarini: Hello, benita.
You remember --
you know, he hands me a gift.
I don't think anything of it.
♪
oh, my god!
I open this gift, and it's a ring.
And I looked at him like, "is this what I think it is?"
and he's like, "yeah."
I actually couldn't talk for a while.
It was a gorgeous ring, and I was so stunned.
♪
that's how he proposed.
It was -- it was sweet.
Goldberg: Sweet, to the tune of supposedly $100,000.
That modern-day fairy tale is coming true,
but still, there are questions --
paolo's divorce, where will they live,
whose career will take precedence?
♪
benita: I wanted him to stick around for new year's,
and he said he couldn't.
He said, "I have a really important surgery.
I have some really high-powered clients."
like dignitaries and world leaders, and I -- "what?"
that's when he told me that there was
this kind of "clandestine" network who are on call,
basically, for these people.
He told me that it included the clintons.
And that he and bill were tight, that they were good friends
and that they played tennis together.
He adds the obamas to this mix.
Obama: There's only one way to solve these challenges.
Benita: As part of this v.I.P. Network,
he had become one of
pope francis' private consulting doctors.
Goldberg: As out there as that might seem,
paolo fits the bill.
Somebody has to do that job.
So why not him?
Benita: As much time as he spent in new york,
it still was a long-distance relationship.
He often had to cancel things at the last minute
because he had an emergency surgery.
It irritated me a bit. It was frustrating,
but it's a hazard of dating the super surgeon.
♪
we knew we wanted to get married in Italy.
We didn't have that much time.
And he said to me,
"look, let me take over all the planning of the wedding."
I was really hesitant to do that.
I mean, no offense, but what man --
[ laughs ] what man knows how to plan a wedding?
Cumba: When benita told me that paolo was gonna do everything,
I'm like, "well, damn. You deserve it.
It's your time to be able to show up and enjoy the party."
benita: Paolo is catholic.
He was absolutely adamant
that he wanted it to be a catholic wedding.
And I said, "look, aside from the fact that I'm not catholic,
the catholic church is not gonna marry two divorcées."
goldberg: But remember, paolo told her
he has a special connection to the vatican --
as a consulting physician to the pope.
And he's flying there now to use those connections.
Benita: Then when he landed in rome, I said,
"who are you meeting with?"
and he said, "you're not gonna believe me."
and he said, "I'm meeting with the pope."
[ choir singing ]
he goes to this meeting,
and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm waiting.
And he finally calls me and he's like, "you need to sit down."
and I'm like, "what's going on?"
goldberg: Paolo and benita have hit a bump
on the road to happily-ever-after.
They can't find a priest willing to marry two divorcées
in the catholic church.
So paolo ups the stakes to biblical proportions.
He says he'll pay a visit to the vatican
to cash in on his connection
as pope francis' personal physician.
He finally calls me and he says,
"they took me in to meet francis."
and then he says, "and he said he can help us."
and then he said, "but,"
and there's this long silence on the phone.
I said, "but what?"
he said, "he offered to marry us himself."
[ applause ]
and I said, "oh, [bleep]
the pope doesn't marry people."
"no, I'm serious. He wants to marry us.
Because we're both divorcées,
he thinks we're the perfect poster couple
to push forward his forward-thinking agenda
to change the catholic church."
and I got so mad.
I said, "well, I -- I'm gonna talk to you later."
and I hung up. Everybody thought it was a joke.
It was like, "are you kidding me?"
I said, "that's nuts! You're not even catholic."
last I checked, I don't think divorced people
get remarried in the catholic church. I don't know.
Benita: And I got on the computer and googled, like,
"does the pope marry people?"
but the thing is what popped up was the pope had just
married a whole bunch of couples at the vatican.
Reporter: Pope francis has married 20 new couples.
Reporter #2: Some of whom had been living in sin.
So I looked at that and I thought,
"okay, then maybe it's not completely out of the question."
[ laughing ]
oh, my god!
Benita: Wait, no, no no, I'm not joking.
We're getting married by the pope.
Il papa! [ laughing ]
from that moment on, I felt like my head was spinning,
and it didn't stop spinning.
The dress that I picked was kind of sexy.
And I thought, "I can't wear that
in front of the pope," you know?
So I go back to the dress shop.
I said, "is there any way you can
put me in touch with the dress designer?
Sobaski: I got a call,
and it was a salon of ours that we work with.
And she said she had a really high-profile client.
Looking fabulous.
Benita: So I took a couple friends with me and my daughter,
and I was videotaping the meeting.
I thought, "you know, if this is really happening,
I'm gonna start documenting all this stuff."
I knew that it was imperative that it be kept quiet.
So I had everybody sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Basically you sign to not tell anybody anything.
Zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket.
Is there going to be a lot of italian family there?
Are they very, like, traditional?
You should probably just let me tell you everything.
Yeah, go ahead.
He starts asking me questions.
You know, I explained who paolo was.
And then I dropped the bomb that, "the pope is marrying us."
yes, we're getting married by the pope.
Oh, my god.
I literally was like, "oh, my god."
I couldn't believe it. I literally sat there.
I think I was in shock the whole time.
And then it just starts sinking in.
And I was like, "okay.
This is a really big deal.
This is not a joke."
you better start designing, matthew!
The pressure was on.
I mean, it was on. The pressure was definitely on.
So this is that lace, which I love.
Is it a ball gown? Is it a trumpet?
We're gonna show off your curves.
What is the pope gonna want?
'cause I really like to show curves,
like marilyn monroe, right?
And I'm thinking, "is he gonna go, 'whoa'?"
[ laughter ]
♪
benita: Paolo claimed that the vatican had offered us
the pope's summer residence,
which is in a small, beautiful, romantic little town
called castel gandolfo.
It's about a 40-minute drive outside of rome.
[ bell rings ]
he said he had secured a castle,
and that's where everybody was staying.
Tarnopol: It made perfect sense in the scheme of
the whole prince charming thing that we would stay in a castle.
Benita: He would reveal the surprises to me sort of slowly,
one by one.
The very first thing he told me was that
andrea bocelli was going to be singing in the church.
I was like, "wow, really?"
she said he said that
his mother and andrea bocelli's mother knew each other
because they were from the same town in Italy.
And then he added that
john legend was going to be playing during the ceremony.
I had just read that you can actually
pay john legend to perform at a private party.
Surgeons are known to have money, so I would think okay.
Benita: Then it was elton john.
I mean, the guest list just kept growing and growing.
Sarah: The beckhams, the obamas.
The clintons. The clintons.
For some reason, russell crowe was on the list.
So the invitation came wrapped in a lambskin envelope.
And it was really fancy with gold lettering and embossed.
Goldberg: The wedding wasn't just one and done.
It was to be a full four-day affair.
That meant benita needed four beautiful gowns.
♪
benita: So paolo wanted this very elaborate wedding dance.
And it was gonna culminate in me coming out in this ball gown.
Sobaski: But he wanted the skirt to come off,
and so she could show off, like, you know, her moves.
He was just gonna grab her, pull her in, and then rip.
There we go. [ laughs ]
goldberg: While benita is being fitted for her gorgeous dresses,
she says paolo is becoming
increasingly stressed about work.
And one morning she wakes up and reads in the new york times
that colleagues at the karolinska institute
are accusing him of scientific misconduct.
I'm like, "what the hell is going on?
Why didn't you tell me?"
he was adamant that there was no basis to these allegations.
I believed he was being unfairly maligned.
Goldberg: But the wedding is still full speed ahead.
-To the beautiful bride! -And the wedding of a lifetime.
-Cheers. -Cheers.
♪
the excitement for this wedding was palpable.
With my friends,
we started calling it "the wedding of the century."
it just felt like this was going to be akin to a royal wedding.
♪ we are golden ♪
♪ yes, we are ♪
it started to feel like she was princess diana or something.
[ cheers and applause ]
goldberg: And after the wedding, it's been decided.
Paolo, benita, and her daughter
are going to live in barcelona, where paolo has a home.
The countdown is on.
Benita quits her television job
and pulls her daughter out of her private school
and gets ready to move.
Three or four times we were supposed to go to barcelona,
and every time, at the last minute,
there was an emergency surgery.
Every single time.
Matt: Her leaving her job and having never been there,
I was kind of like, "wow, that's odd."
♪
benita: I had asked a group of girlfriends to go to the spa.
I'm walking up to the reception desk to pay,
and I pull out my phone.
I see this e-mail.
The subject line just says, "the pope."
she looked stricken.
It was like somebody knocked the wind out of me.
I was -- I felt sick.
Fontana: Benita organized a spa day.
We were all having a great time.
She was looking at her phone, and she looked worried.
I see this e-mail.
And it's from a colleague and it says, "we need to talk."
and it has a link to an article that shows that
the pope is not going to be in rome on July 11th.
He's going to be in south america.
Goldberg: According to this news report,
the pope is not only going to be on a different continent
on the day of their wedding,
the trip has been planned for quite some time.
Benita: I actually literally almost physically fell over.
She looked stricken, and her friend said,
"is everything okay?"
and she said, "no.
The pope is going to be in south america
on the day of my wedding."
and we all just got really quiet and were kind of like,
"oh, my god. Oh, my god."
benita: It was like somebody knocked the wind out of me.
I felt sick.
And I immediately start blowing up paolo's phone.
I'm screaming at him.
I'm like, "what the hell is going on?"
he said, "look, somebody is trying to undermine the pope."
the former pope benedict,
who was much more conservative than francis,
would never approve of what francis was about to do.
So paolo's explanation was that
benedict had gone behind francis' back
and made it so that the pope couldn't do our wedding.
And that he was gonna fly to rome
and get to the bottom of this and not to worry.
"I'll fix this."
after the phone call, she was absolutely frightened.
She said, "oh, my god.
Oh, my god. What if this is all a lie?"
and then it was just... From there.
She just kind of woke up from a --
from a cloud of love and romance and started asking questions.
I called the castle
where he says he's booked all these rooms,
and everybody's saying they never heard of him.
I called the restaurant that he said was catering the wedding.
They say they've never heard of anything.
The phone calls I could've made at any second,
but I didn't because everything was supposed to be a surprise.
Goldberg: Benita starts investigating paolo
the way she would investigate her stories at work.
She also hires private investigators
in the states and Italy.
Envision an onion,
and you start peeling the layers back of the onion.
She basically started to uncover everything,
layer by layer, piece by piece.
Goldberg: She's also playing a good, old-fashioned game
of cat and mouse.
She decides to let paolo think
nothing has changed in their relationship
to buy her some time to figure out
exactly what is going on here.
♪
benita: So then he proceeds to tell me
that they're gonna bring the pope back.
The wedding's still on. Okay.
At the same time, the --
things are heating up with the scientific allegations,
which is very convenient timing.
Goldberg: The karolinska institute is deep into
a formal investigation into those claims
coming from colleagues
that paolo has fabricated parts of his medical research.
I basically said, "we can't get married right now anyway.
You're way too stressed.
I think the best thing we do is postpone the wedding.
I'll send out a note canceling it."
tarnopol: 300 people already bought plane tickets,
and you have to somehow let them know.
So she somehow created an e-mail.
Benita: It was so hard to know what to say.
I was blowing up everybody's dream, not just my dream.
"dear family and friends,
it is with an extraordinarily heavy heart
that I write to inform you that due to unforeseen
and unfortunate personal circumstances,
we have to cancel our July 11th wedding in Italy.
We greatly respect the lengths and expense you've undertaken
in order to make plans to celebrate with us this summer.
And we are deeply sorry
for the great inconvenience this causes."
I was saying, "what?"
if my jaw could've been on the ground,
it would've been on the ground.
Oh, my god.
It was so much
because the staff had to put so much work into this.
How do I tell the workroom,
after we've sat there and pinned every ruffle through,
we went through every lace placement,
we went through all this stuff for benita,
who deserved all that beautiful work,
and for that day, for them --
my feelings were just crushed.
It was insane.
It was so upsetting for all of us,
and we were upset for her.
She was just starting to discover all sorts of truths --
or I should say discover the lies he had told.
And they started to pile up,
one after another, after another.
Goldberg: Benita manages to get the vatican to verify
paolo is not the pope's personal doctor.
She calls in a clinton contact, and guess what?
They've never heard of paolo.
And she can't find any evidence that the obamas knew him either.
And that engagement ring he said was worth $100,000?
It's worth about $1,000.
Oh, and one other detail
that might prevent the two from achieving wedded bliss --
the italian investigator tells her he can find no evidence
that paolo and his wife were ever officially divorced.
But benita is not finished yet.
She uses those non-refundable plane tickets to head to Italy
on what would have been her wedding weekend.
Benita: I wanted to go to Italy to investigate for myself.
I wanted to see the places I was supposed to have been going.
And I wanted to go to the house in barcelona.
I knew there was something
hidden in that house in barcelona.
I didn't know what it was,
but I knew there was a damn good reason
he had never let me go to that house.
And I thought, "the only way I'm gonna find out what it is,
is to go there, and for him to not know that I'm going there."
♪
goldberg: Days after what should have been benita's wedding,
she and her friends nancy and leigh
use those non-refundable plane tickets
to head to paolo's house in barcelona.
Benita's still playing cat and mouse with paolo.
She says he told her he's in russia, working.
I really didn't know what I was gonna find out,
but I wanted it on videotape.
I had so much nervous energy.
So we decided that I was gonna wear this blonde wig.
Goldberg: Fully disguised in a platinum wig
with her girl posse...
I think, deep down, she wanted to see him
and look him in the eye and ask him like, "what the hell?"
benita: He lives, like, at the top of this hill.
And we get to the top, and I was shaking.
We drive by the house.
And I'm watching behind, and all of a sudden I see somebody.
So I yell to the -- to my friends.
I'm like, "somebody's there."
and they jump out of the car.
And they walk down the hill.
Goldberg: What do you know?
It's paolo.
And he's not in russia.
And I was angry as hell.
I was angry as hell.
As I'm videotaping this, I see a woman and two kids.
From what I could tell, he had a whole family there.
That was unexpected.
So that kind of threw
a little monkey wrench in it for all of us.
I knew paolo had a wife.
I knew about the wife in Italy.
The woman in barcelona is not his wife.
Up until then, I had been
thinking about getting out of the car.
Once I saw those kids, I couldn't move.
So we ring the doorbell, and he answers the door.
I had my phone on and, you know,
I didn't get a good shot of him, but I got his feet.
And he's like, "why are you here?"
and we're like, "oh, we wanted to give you a gift,
you know, for the wedding,
for the wedding that never happened," basically.
His eyes, his eyeballs, he was looking down,
and they were going like...
[ trilling tongue ]
like, he was calculating.
He was trying to figure out what lie he told
and what he was gonna say next.
And then he said, "well, where's your car?"
he didn't even invite us in.
And normally, you would think if somebody traveled this far,
you know, you're like, "oh, can I get you a water or coffee?"
benita: I see him walk back up the stairs.
I mean, my -- my friends open the car door.
I'm...Not even crying.
I'm wailing.
The last time I ever saw him was when he turned around
and walked up those stairs to go to his house in barcelona.
I decided to text him.
I basically sent him this long text
telling him that I knew he was lying about everything,
and he makes me sick.
He writes back one word.
"wow!"
that's all he said.
"wow!"
I was devastated.
I was shattered.
She had quit her job.
She had no money coming in.
She took her daughter out of school.
It was awful.
Sarah: She honestly went pretty dark and silent.
We just, you know, felt awful for her, awful for my niece.
Just trying to wrap our brains around everything,
how it could all blow up like that
and how we could all be so fooled.
It's different than any other kind of loss or breakup
because in an odd way there's nothing to grieve
because the person that I thought I was in love with
didn't exist.
At the same time, it's extraordinarily painful
and devastating beyond belief on so many levels.
Goldberg: On top of everything,
benita has to tell her daughter.
It's one thing to play with me
and to fool me and to pull your [bleep] on me.
A little girl?
A little girl that just lost her dad?
How dare you?
He sat in front of this little girl
and talked to her about the life she's gonna have in barcelona,
the whole time knowing it's a bunch of crap, you know?
How do you do that?
How do you do that to a child?
Cumba: When there's somebody that you care about,
and they finally put their guard down to be loved,
to have this piece of crap person come in
and just be such a good con artist,
it still breaks my heart to this day.
Goldberg: Benita still agonizes over it,
dissecting it piece by piece.
It's not like somebody was standing there
waving a red flag, saying,
"caution, caution, this man's a fake."
the fact that he was often
canceling plans at the last minute,
the fact that there were always these emergency surgeries.
But most of those things
had plausible explanations at the time,
especially in the line of work that he's in.
I think that it's much easier for somebody to con people
the more successful they are.
When somebody is very successful,
we tend to sometimes idolize them,
suspend our beliefs more,
even if they tell us the most incredible things,
mainly because they have such stature.
I just can't help but wonder,
had she not uncovered it,
how far he would have taken it.
To leave her at the altar?
I don't know what his end game was.
I don't think he had an end game.
Benita: So that's the million-dollar question, right?
Why the hell do this?
Why do this to anybody?
♪
why did you do this to me?
Why would you do that to anybody?
She believed in the love.
And then to have all of that just fall apart
in the worst of ways was almost unbearable.
What would you do if you had given up your life
for something that you believed in and trusted?
♪
benita: 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.
I couldn't fall apart because I am a single mother
with a daughter who needs me.
I couldn't fall apart because if he's lying to me like this,
there's no way he's not lying
in his medical and professional life.
Goldberg: After the wedding of benita's dreams
turns into the con of a lifetime,
could it be possible
paolo is not on the up-and-up in his medical life?
Could his revolutionary plastic tracheas be too good to be true?
Well, it's complicated.
Swedish journalist bo lindquist
spent a year following paolo for a documentary,
tracking those allegations
surfacing from colleagues in the medical community
that paolo may be downplaying the risk
and embellishing the success of some of his surgeries.
According to paolo's scientific writings,
yes, you could see a healthy trachea starting to develop.
According to the real biopsies, there was nothing.
It was dead.
There was fungi growing on the plastic.
Goldberg: Questions arise as patients receiving
his synthetic organ transplants begin to die.
His patient from his first revolutionary surgery dies,
as does the little girl
that benita followed for her documentary.
Paolo implanted his plastic trachea in eight patients.
One is alive.
Seven dead, one alive.
Goldberg: Paolo denies that his transplants
shortened the lives of these patients
or caused their deaths
and notes that their underlying health conditions were fatal
and may have been a factor.
Reporter: Do you still believe in the procedure?
Of course I believe in the technology
and, come on, I mean, the first liver transplant,
the first kidney transplant, the first heart transplant.
Did they go all well? No.
If you do something such radically new,
you expect complications.
At the karolinska institute in sweden,
paolo is eventually found guilty of scientific misconduct
for misrepresenting the results of his transplants.
He loses his post there.
Reporter: And just weeks ago,
swedish prosecutors later charded paolo
with aggravated assault
relating to three of his surgeries.
A court date has yet to be announced.
Goldberg: He wouldn't comment for this story,
and he's never publicly commented
on his relationship with benita.
♪
it's now been five years since the wedding that never was.
-To the beautiful bride. -And the wedding of a lifetime.
♪
I, sort of without meaning to, became a "love con" expert.
I hope that my story can help other women
because if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
I do still believe in love.
I have always been a hopeless romantic, always will be.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
I'm just -- I'm really afraid to let somebody in there again.
♪
you take such a hit from something like this,
it takes a while to trust yourself.
I mean, I think that's been the hardest part about it.
It's not even so much about trusting other people.
It's about trusting myself.
But I will say that five years later,
I do feel like I'm back on my feet.
I'm a little worse for the wear, maybe.
The one thing I was really adamant with myself about
is I didn't want this to make me bitter.
I didn't want to give him the added power
of having a lasting, negative impact on my life.
I'm still exactly who I was before.
I just went through this crazy ordeal.
And it has made me stronger.
♪
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