Documentary Two-hour special that investigates the perfect engagement gone wrong between Emmy award-winning journalist, Benita Alexander, and the internationally acclaimed surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini. [00:33:49] Matthew Christopher: I mean yeah, I'm like oh, look. [00:18:58] Bob: I love you in rose petals on the bed. Anyone that knows anything about private schools in New York knows how hard that is. And I open the door, and there's a trail of rose petals leading up to the bed, and it says "I love you" in rose petals on the bed. I want to focus on work. [00:09:12] Bob: And so, Benita travels to Boston to meet the miracle worker for herself. Both have covered Macchiarini in their work. [00:06:46] Benita: And he was, as I said, called the super surgeon, and he was the pioneer in this field. TV & Film Producer, Director, Writer, Correspondent, Narrator. Since her romance with Paolo imploded in 2015, the brunette beauty has continued working on documentaries and docuseries'. [00:09:18] Benita: Yeah, so we, we started focusing our story around Hannah and her family, and Hannah was actually, she was going to be the youngest person in the world to ever get one of his experimental transplants; the first toddler, and also the first patient to be operated on in the United States. "I talked to my editors and we started thinking, 'Well, let's just keep pulling on this thread. En Espanol They become engaged and plan a lavish dream wedding, to be attended by celebrities and officiated by none other than Pope Francis himself. And one of those really, really tight embraces. And [00:14:24] Bob: It feels natural for Benita to share the family struggle with this world famous surgeon, a man who had spent his career cheating death, or trying anyway. It just never stopped, to the point that I would come home from these trips, and all my friends were hanging on the edge of their seat. The scale . In the next 24 hours, you will receive an email to confirm your subscription to receive emails [00:34:26] Matthew Christopher: You put your, I am going to make the most gorgeous dress you've ever seen. [00:40:30] Benita: Paolo lived in Barcelona, and so we had talked about what were we going to do after the wedding. [00:25:58] Bo Lindquist: I think he liked the challenge. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. I loved my work at NBC. And I literally, I was really like, what? "He didnt know Pope Francis, he wasnt his personal doctor.". That hideous under eye makeup , the obvious heavy Botox , that absurd VERY heavy makeup AND that over-dyed silly black hair says it all. I still remember my first day walking in there too, especially with, with all the art, the art deco and everything. People could be dying because of this man, and therefore, I couldn't stay silent, I couldn't crawl under the covers. [00:00:34] Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. The university even cited some of the whistleblowers, reprimanding them for their participation in some of Macchiarini's papers. A successful TV journalist, the single mother-of-one was interviewing him for a report on cutting-edge medicine. Javascript must be enabled to use this site. 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[00:04:39] Benita: I think one of the things that can make you a good journalist if, is if you're able to put yourself in the other person's shoes, and if you're able to sympathize with them and empathize them and really try to understand what it is they're going through. But the biopsies showed the cells were dead and that there was actually fungi growing on the plastic, he said. She had already spent good money on her wedding preparations. It's a very aggressive form of brain cancer. You can also manage your communication preferences by updating your account at anytime. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers people to choose how they live as they age. Alexander, who said she'd become close to the girl's family, was "devastated," and that Macchiarini was "depressed" about it, as they both had become attached to her. She is honestly proud of how far she has come (as she should be), and its evident shell never let anything or anyone take this journey/narrative away from her. That was insane. He has peoples lives in his hands.. Gerdin also said Macchiarini had failed to obtain ethical permits to perform the transplants, which he said amounted to experimentation on human subjects. Death." But as the wedding planning continued, Alexander's fianc became increasingly embroiled in work-related issues. Eventually, she died. A new two-hour "20/20" reports on Benita Alexander, a television producer who fell head over heels in love with world-renowned surgeon Paolo Macchiarini while producing a report on his revolutionary new surgery technique. She was floored when he told her John Legend would sing at their wedding and Pope Francis would officiate. She is an executive producer, narrator, writer and director known for her work in the true crime genre. And it was very difficult for us um, with the story because, you know, we had all hoped for one of these happy endings, you know, this was, the hope was to do a two-hour special, and at the end of it, you know, Hannah's home in South Korea, running around the backyard with her, her big sister, and you know, being a happy toddler as, as she should have been all along, and you know, Hannah was the most vibrant little girl. But unfortunately, her personal life has been marred by a turbulent childhood in Huntington Woods, Michigan, and a series of unsuccessful relationships. Quack, quack, quack. I had to expose him.". [00:22:38] Bob: What Benita doesn't know at the time, she couldn't have known, is that Hannah's death also sparks the interest of the European journalist named Bo Lindquist, a Swedish filmmaker, he's already working on a documentary film about Paolo, but it isn't designed with a happy ending in mind. Benita Alexander is an American television producer, director, writer, and reporter. I was really taken back. She couldn't do anything that a normal child could do. He was listed as one of . Excellent place. Of course, it's Valentine's Day, I'm like, oh my God. And he actually said his barber in uh the south of Russia, he, he managed to find this excellent, excellent barber in Kazan there where he performed his Russian experiments, brilliant guy. [00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam. "I went full on into investigator mode as I knew he wouldnt tell me the truth," Benita said. [00:30:37] Bob: So now that she's been told the Pope is involved, Benita has another secret to keep. And whatever that is, let's, let's push that away, you know. Then, two years later, her father, whod married a neighbor, asked her to pack up her bags and leave for good. Ole Petter Ottersen, president of the Karolinska Institute since 2017, told ABC News in a request for comment on Macchiarini, "It is obvious that KI's initial handling of this case was insufficient and inadequate on several points. I mean it was, I felt butterflies, you know. But the former NBC News producer would come to find out the hard way that even the most glamorous and convincing of appearances can be deceiving. But her death was awful. Documentary producer Benita Alexander thought it was love when her job introduced her to internationally renowned surgeon Paolo Macchiarini. That's pretty unusual too. The couple divorced in 2009. She said that in November 2014, they had planned a trip to California to spend Thanksgiving with her family, "and he had been really stressed in the weeks before, and he had been talking to me for some time about how there were people that were against him, and his 'enemies.'". It has led to extensive reform work internally at KI in order to improve and clarify a number of regulations and routines.". [00:34:17] Bob: Well, at some point you transition from wow to okay, I've got to get to work on this, right? Corbascio called the decision "absolutely insane.". I didn't know what to think. But at this point, they're just questions. And then John Legend was supposed to be playing piano in the church. With Whoopi Goldberg filling the narrators seat, the series kicks off with the story of Paolo Macchiarini, a former world-renowned thoracic surgeon now known for research fraud and his strange involvement with an unsuspecting producer by the name of Benita Alexander. An astonishing true story of love, betrayal and unimaginable deception. [00:20:06] Benita: We had kind of quietly gotten engaged, but we weren't telling anybody um, because I mean the complicated thing about this is that there's a sort of unwritten rule in journalism that everybody understands, that, you know, there's, there is a line you just don't cross a kind of sacred line where you don't, you can empathize with a story subject, you can sympathize, but you don't become personally involved with a story subject for, for the reason, obviously, that your objectivity could be compromised, right. "None of these people were coming," Benita said she tragically discovered. See production, box office & company info, Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon. And he's getting noticed in the medical field. And that presence was really something, it was really something. You know this man adores you. [00:13:10] Benita: When I met Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, and when I was working on this story, I was at an extremely vulnerable place in my life. But everything else, I'm planning everything, and you can't ask me any questions." You are no longer 21 !!! [00:31:56] Bob: Benita sees a dress made by Christopher in a New York City store, but it isn't quite right. He wrote love notes in lipstick on her mirror and left roses on the bed in the shape of hearts. And the two go on a magic carpet ride together. Benita has to keep a secret. How to, what do we do now? In mid-2013, they became a couple and in December that year they became pre-engaged as Macchiarini, who lived in Barcelona, Spain, said he was still legally married with two children but had been separated for a long time and was filing for divorce. And then every month there was a new surprise. receive communications related to AARP volunteering. After sweeping Alexander off her feet by taking her to jet-setting and romantic locales all over the world for months, Macchiarini proposed. In June 2013, they flew to Venice for what Alexander called an incredibly romantic weekend.. 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