She had, by her own account, been wildly in love with Follieri since they met through a friend in 2004. Follieri's business had been based on acquiring properties, largely from the Catholic Church in America – he boasted of links to the Vatican that might give him special rights to buy such assets. He had impressed enough to make some powerful business associations, forming a joint venture in 2005 with Yucaipa, an investment firm run by the billionaire supermarket mogul Ron Burkle, a friend of Bill Clinton. Follieri had even set up a charitable foundation in his name with Hathaway on its board, which in 2006 began a programme of vaccination against hepatitis A in Nicaragua. On one occasion he was publicly thanked by Clinton for pledging $50 million from the foundation to the Clinton Global Initiative (a donation that has not been paid). But from May 2007, when Yucaipa filed a suit against Follieri for 'systematically misappropriating the assets' on maintaining an A-list lifestyle with Hathaway ('five-star lodging', 'inappropriate jet travel'), Follieri's dealings came under increasing scrutiny. He settled the $1.3 million Yucaipa suit, but in April 2008 he had to visit a New York police station to address the matter of a $215,000 bounced cheque, a prelude to the charge sheet brought against him in June (among other things, he was accused of hiring two monsignors to accompany him to business meetings and, once, of asking a monsignor to wear the robes of a more senior clergyman in order to make Follieri's Vatican connections appear more important.)