Pity poor con man Raffaello Follieri – a rube from the sticks of southern Italy burned by the bright lights and big city while scamming gullible investors out of millions.
“He was surrounded by movie stars and celebrities, and this young man who neither drinks nor smokes be came intoxicated with it all,” lawyer Flora Edwards wrote in a sentencing memo in Follieri’s fraud case yesterday.
“To say his hopes and dreams of building a thriv ing business in the United States has been a disaster is an understatement . . .
“The results [were] a colossal error in judgment which has had a devastating impact on Raffaello and those around him.”
Among the smart set Follieri palled around with was “Get Smart” beauty Anne Hathaway, whom he dated for four years before his bubble burst.
He also forged a real-estate venture with California supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle – and palled around with Douglas Band, an aide to Bill Clinton, prosecutors say.
Last month, a shaken Hathaway told W magazine she felt like “a rug was pulled out from under me” when Follieri was first arrested.
He pleaded guilty in September to a scheme in which he fraudulently obtained almost $2.5 million by misleading investors to believe he had Vatican connections that enabled him to buy at a discount unwanted US real estate owned by the Catholic Church.
Prosecutors say the dough went to keeping up with the uber-rich Joneses he befriended – along with a $37,000-a-month Manhattan apartment, pricey vacations and private jets.
But Edwards said the court should cut the native of Foggia, Italy, some slack, citing his sick mom’s advanced cirrhosis, caused by a tainted blood transfusion.
Anna Follieri’s deteriorating health means she can’t travel to the United States while her son sits in prison, and it is “also unlikely that she will survive to see her son again” if he gets a lengthy stretch, Edwards wrote the judge.
Follieri faces 41/4 to 51/4 years at his Oct. 23 sentencing under terms of his plea deal to 14 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering.
But Edwards asked Judge John Koeltl for no more than three years., saying Follieri “should not be judged solely by the worst thing he has ever done.”
Edwards cited a letter from one victim, lawyer Richard Ortoli, who said Follieri “started his ventures with the best of intentions and with high principles but that he somehow went astray.”
Most of the letters were from friends and relatives in Italy.
One friend who did not write was Hathaway.
A Hathaway spokesman declined to comment, but the “Devil Wears Prada” star made light of her ex’s predicament when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” this month.
“I broke up with my boyfriend . . . and two weeks later he was sent to prison for fraud . . . I mean, we’ve all been there, right, ladies?” she joked during her Oct. 4 monologue.