The story behind Wonderhood’s new documentary featured in The Telegraph.
He is known as the ‘Devil’s Advocate’, and rarely can there have been a more deliciously appropriate epithet.
In a legal career that seemingly knew no bounds, Giovanni di Stefano claimed to have offered counsel to Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević, Arkan, Robert Mugabe, Ian Brady and Gary Glitter, to name but a few, and regarded many of them as personal friends.
Saddam Hussein? ‘A normal, average, everyday person.’ Milošević? ‘A very nice man. F—k me, what a nice man.’ Harold Shipman? ‘Does he look like a guilty man to you?’ He even said he would defend Satan in court if he could, arguing that ‘no one’s ever asked, “Does Satan have a case?”’ Ditto Adolf Hitler.
In the late ’90s and throughout the noughties, di Stefano was rarely out of the headlines for long, making his name with court victories for notorious landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten and gangster John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer before graduating to global pariahs.
He was also a walking headline, not only pulling off breathtakingly audacious victories for big-name villains, but ready with a quote, delivered in fluent journalese.
Describing his first encounter with bin Laden, for example, he said: ‘He had very soft skin and a handshake like a girl’s. We talked about Titian.’
His insatiable appetite for notoriety could not, however, be satisfied merely by befriending despots and murderers. He wanted to become a movie mogul, so he instigated a takeover of MGM Studios.
He wanted to own a football club, so he bought an Italian team and got on the board of Dundee FC. He wanted to be a politician, so he founded his own party, the Radical Party of Great Britain, borrowing policies from his two greatest heroes – Margaret Thatcher and Benito Mussolini. He wanted to be a pop star, so he released a CD. The list goes on.
If there was drama in court, on a battlefield, on a soccer pitch or in Tinseltown, di Stefano never seemed far from the fray. ‘He just kept popping up everywhere, like Where’s Wally,’ says the director of a new documentary about him.
From humble beginnings as the son of a cobbler, growing up in southern Italy and later in a council house in Northamptonshire, he appeared to have achieved it all: homes in London, Monaco, Marbella, Majorca and Rome; Rolls-Royces, Hollywood contacts, millions in the bank.
‘Giovanni was someone who dreamt and the following morning he made it come true,’ said financier Giancarlo Parretti, the former owner of MGM. Or, as another client, the former It girl Birgit Cunningham, put it: ‘He saw his life as a movie.’
Exactly which movie that would be is harder to pin down, rather like the man himself. Because almost nothing about Giovanni di Stefano is as it seems.
While it is undoubtedly true that di Stefano possesses a sharp legal brain that has outwitted respected barristers, it is also true that he is one of the world’s most accomplished con artists.
For a start, he isn’t a lawyer at all. Nor is he an undercover spy, as he once claimed to be, or an ex-boyfriend of the rock star Suzi Quatro, as he boasted while still a schoolboy.
The houses? Rented. The cars? Borrowed. The money? Often stolen. Even his client list was partially invented. As for his legal qualifications… non-existent.
The truth eventually caught up with him and di Stefano is currently serving a 22-year sentence for multiple counts of fraud, deception and money laundering. It is by no means the first time he has been incarcerated; indeed, one of the undeniably impressive facts about him is that he has packed so much into his 66 years, despite spending almost a third of them behind bars.
Next year he will become eligible for release, and as the legal world braces itself for what he might do when he walks free, a three-part Sky documentary, which starts on 15 February, will attempt to answer the question of who exactly Giovanni di Stefano really is.
It is titled Devil’s Advocate: The Mostly True Story of Giovanni di Stefano, because as its director Sam Hobkinson discovered, establishing irrefutable facts about di Stefano is like nailing tiramisu to a wall.
‘What he did very cleverly was, he told lies that were very close to the truth,’ he says. ‘The truth was always in there somewhere, but it was embellished. There was a fog of truth and lies.’
He is known as the ‘Devil’s Advocate’, and rarely can there have been a more deliciously appropriate epithet.
In a legal career that seemingly knew no bounds, Giovanni di Stefano claimed to have offered counsel to Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević, Arkan, Robert Mugabe, Ian Brady and Gary Glitter, to name but a few, and regarded many of them as personal friends.
Saddam Hussein? ‘A normal, average, everyday person.’ Milošević? ‘A very nice man. F—k me, what a nice man.’ Harold Shipman? ‘Does he look like a guilty man to you?’ He even said he would defend Satan in court if he could, arguing that ‘no one’s ever asked, “Does Satan have a case?”’ Ditto Adolf Hitler.
In the late ’90s and throughout the noughties, di Stefano was rarely out of the headlines for long, making his name with court victories for notorious landlord Nicholas van Hoogstraten and gangster John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer before graduating to global pariahs.
He was also a walking headline, not only pulling off breathtakingly audacious victories for big-name villains, but ready with a quote, delivered in fluent journalese.
Describing his first encounter with bin Laden, for example, he said: ‘He had very soft skin and a handshake like a girl’s. We talked about Titian.’
His insatiable appetite for notoriety could not, however, be satisfied merely by befriending despots and murderers. He wanted to become a movie mogul, so he instigated a takeover of MGM Studios.
He wanted to own a football club, so he bought an Italian team and got on the board of Dundee FC. He wanted to be a politician, so he founded his own party, the Radical Party of Great Britain, borrowing policies from his two greatest heroes – Margaret Thatcher and Benito Mussolini. He wanted to be a pop star, so he released a CD. The list goes on.
If there was drama in court, on a battlefield, on a soccer pitch or in Tinseltown, di Stefano never seemed far from the fray. ‘He just kept popping up everywhere, like Where’s Wally,’ says the director of a new documentary about him.
From humble beginnings as the son of a cobbler, growing up in southern Italy and later in a council house in Northamptonshire, he appeared to have achieved it all: homes in London, Monaco, Marbella, Majorca and Rome; Rolls-Royces, Hollywood contacts, millions in the bank.
‘Giovanni was someone who dreamt and the following morning he made it come true,’ said financier Giancarlo Parretti, the former owner of MGM. Or, as another client, the former It girl Birgit Cunningham, put it: ‘He saw his life as a movie.’
Exactly which movie that would be is harder to pin down, rather like the man himself. Because almost nothing about Giovanni di Stefano is as it seems.
While it is undoubtedly true that di Stefano possesses a sharp legal brain that has outwitted respected barristers, it is also true that he is one of the world’s most accomplished con artists.
For a start, he isn’t a lawyer at all. Nor is he an undercover spy, as he once claimed to be, or an ex-boyfriend of the rock star Suzi Quatro, as he boasted while still a schoolboy.
The houses? Rented. The cars? Borrowed. The money? Often stolen. Even his client list was partially invented. As for his legal qualifications… non-existent.
The truth eventually caught up with him and di Stefano is currently serving a 22-year sentence for multiple counts of fraud, deception and money laundering. It is by no means the first time he has been incarcerated; indeed, one of the undeniably impressive facts about him is that he has packed so much into his 66 years, despite spending almost a third of them behind bars.
Next year he will become eligible for release, and as the legal world braces itself for what he might do when he walks free, a three-part Sky documentary, which starts on 15 February, will attempt to answer the question of who exactly Giovanni di Stefano really is.
It is titled Devil’s Advocate: The Mostly True Story of Giovanni di Stefano, because as its director Sam Hobkinson discovered, establishing irrefutable facts about di Stefano is like nailing tiramisu to a wall.
‘What he did very cleverly was, he told lies that were very close to the truth,’ he says. ‘The truth was always in there somewhere, but it was embellished. There was a fog of truth and lies.’
Read the full story in The Telegraph here