Revealed: How Anne Hathaway's con man former lover found himself in Bill Clinton's inner circle thanks to the ex-president's 'body man' who now lives in $10.3 million NYC apartment

Raffaelo Follieri, Hathaway's ex, spent 4-1/2 years in federal prison for defrauding investors

Bill Clinton consigliere Doug Band introduced the con man to the Clinton orbit after he pledged $50 million to the Clinton Global initiative, money that was never paid

An investment fund where Clinton was the chief adviser put $50 million into a bogus Follieri scheme to buy and develop Catholic Church properties

The Clinton connection to a convicted fraudster won't help Hillary as she gears up to run for president in 2016



An Italian con man man who romanced Anne Hathaway before spending 4-1/2 years in federal prison for fraud was knee-deep in the world of Bill and Hillary Clinton before his arrest and a catastrophic downfall, a new report reveals.

Raffaello Follieri, whom federal prosecutors sent to prison in 2008 for defrauding his backers, accepted a $50 million investment three years earlier from the Yucaipa Group, where Bill Clinton was the senior adviser, The New Republic reports.

While the money was earmarked for buying properties from the Roman Catholic Church and converting them into commercial developments, Follieri spent much of it on himself and Hathaway. He also claimed to be the Vatican's chief financial officer at one point.



Follieri's personal receipts later included $37,000 per month for an apartment complete with an executive chef and a private dog-walker, and at least one $107,000 jet rental for him and Hathaway to join the Clintons for New Year's Eve at Oscar de la Renta’s Dominican Republic estate.

Happier times: Raffaello Follieri and Anne Hathaway were a pair in 2008 at the Oscars, but a few months later the fraudster was in handcuffs with a $21 million bail order

Band (R) rose from a White House internship to become the ultimate gatekeeper to Bill Clinton

Politico: Among Follieri's well-connected friends were Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (L) and Terry McAuliffe (R), the Democrats' candidate for Virginia governor



'In his recently published autobiography,' The Wall Street Journal reported in 2007, 'Terry McAuliffe, a Democratic Party leader who is now chairman of Sen. [Hillary] Clinton's presidential campaign, includes a group photo from a January 2006 party in the Dominican Republic resort of Punta Cana. It shows Mr. and Mrs. McAuliffe, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ms. Hathaway and Mr. Follieri.'

McAuliffe is now locked in a neck-and-neck Virginia gubernatorial election battle with the state 's Republican a ttorney general, Ken Cuccinelli.

Doug Band, Clinton's 41-year-old former 'body man,' became super-rich from his association with the former president and now owns a trio of adjoining New York City apartments valued at $10.3 million.

Band's entree to the jet set came through Follieri, whose meteoric rise into New York's financial elite was fueled, prosecutors later found, by lies.

'Follieri courted Band by playing on his taste for the high life,' according to The New Republic .



The fraudster invited Band and his then-girlfriend to fancy dinners and introduced them to the rich and famous. 'Band was exposed to another universe,' former Follieri publicist Melanie Bonvicino told the magazine. 'The cosmetics of it worked for everybody.'

Band, who was -- and still is -- Bill Clinton's gatekeeper, reciprocated by bringing Follieri to meet the super-wealthy in the former president's inner circle, some of whom later invested with the con man.

Once firmly inside the Bill Clinton Orbit, Follieri brought Hathaway within arm's reach of the former Oval Office charmer

Bill Clinton and his longtime pal billionaire Ron Burkle (R) put $50 million into Follieri's fabricated plan to buy up church properties, based on an introduction from Clinton 'body man' Doug Band

'With Band’s help,' according to the lengthy article, 'Follieri got meetings with, among others, Clinton himself, Burkle, and Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, aboard Slim’s yacht in the Sea of Cortez.'

'Slim declined to invest, but another introduction paid off: Through another Clinton contact, Keith Stein, Band hooked Follieri up with Michael Cooper, the head of Toronto-based Dundee Realty Corporation, who kicked in $6 million.'

Burkle, a billionaire and long-time 'Friend Of Bill,' took a meeting with Follieri in 2005 and inked a deal to buy the church properties, based on the grifter's promise that he had special access at the Vatican. One year later, Yucaipa was suing for breach of contract.



When that money came in, Follieri paid $400,000 to a shell company that Band had set up to allow businesses, including Yucaipa, to supplement his income so he could afford to work for Clinton on a relatively modest $110,000 salary.

With that money in hand, Band and his brother Gregory made $4,600 contributions -- the maximum allowed at the time -- to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Band told The New Republic that he eventually repaid the $400,000 payoff, sending it to Cooper directly. But that development came in 2007, after Yucaipa sued Follieri and press inquiries began to percolate.



In 2006, Follieri was also wooing at least one prominent Republican at the time: Arizona Sen. John McCain.

A photograph published by the liberal magazine The Nation shows Follieri greeting guests while the senator walks up the gangplank of a yacht on his 70th birthday in 2006. Follieri had rented the boat for a month to sail the Adriatic Sea. McCain was in Montenegro as part of a congressional-delegation trip.

Follieri once took Hathaway for an audience with Pope John Paul II, cementing his contrived image as a Vatican insider

'A few months after McCain's yacht party,' The Nation reported, 'Follieri strengthened his ties to McCain's orbit by retaining Rick Davis's well-connected Washington lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, and offering Davis both an investment deal and help in securing the Catholic vote for McCain's presidential bid.'

Once, at an annual meeting of the then-one-year-old Clinton Global Initiative, the former president seemed to give Follieri his own public imprimatur with an on-stage embrace.

The rub: As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton girds up for a 2016 presidential campaign, she can ill afford any hints of financial impropriety surrounding her famous political family

At the September 21, 2006 event, Clinton called the swindler to the stage and thanked him for a $50 million pledge, which was earmarked for vaccinating Honduran children against hepatitis A.



That money never materialized.

'Why anyone would allow him to get close to Clinton and be on a stage saying he’s going to give $50 million away?' one Clinton insider told Vanity Fair two years later, speaking of Band. 'It’s absolutely nuts.'

Band largely traded on his access to Clinton, The New Republic reported.

In one case a company hoping for a Clinton speech at a conference approached Band for guidance. In addition to recommending a sizable donation to the Clinton Global Initiative, he also reportedly said the company should 'also pay you for having made that happen'

'Doug has always been reasonably commercial, let’s just say,' a former White House colleague said. 'He was a gatekeeper who charged tolls.'



Follieri is now back in Italy, with his felony convictions for wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy behind him.



A spokesman for Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. senator who is now exploring a presidential run, did not respond to e-mailed questions about Band's role in her previous campaigns, and whether she ever benefited from Follieri's short-lived financial connections.