Raffaello Follieri - who pleaded guilty in September to 14 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy - was sentenced in Manhattan federal court Thursday to 4%26#189; years in prison.

At the request of his attorney, Flora Edwards, the Italian-born Follieri, 30, is likely to be imprisoned either at Fort Dix, N.J., or in Otisville, N.Y. The bureau of prisons will decide the level of security under which he’ll be placed.

His next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 12.

‘What I Did Was Wrong’

Through an interpreter, Follieri delivered a statement, in which he said, “The most important thing I want the court to know is I was not raised with bad values. … I started off with good intentions, determined to run an honorable business and make everyone proud of me.”

But, he admitted, “What I did was wrong and there is no point in making excuses. … I will never be able to wash away the shame. … I just hope that someday those who have been hurt by my actions will forgive me.”

He started with good intentions, said his attorney, but then he “sunk and sunk into a quagmire of his own making.”

Follieri, who conceivably could have faced up to 265 years in prison, had agreed not to appeal a sentence less than 63 months in prison.

Arrested in June

Follieri was arrested in June and, in papers filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, accused of lying to investors by claiming to be the CFO of the Vatican and using swindled funds for a trip to the Dominican Republic over New Year’s 2005-06 with his “then girlfriend” (Anne Hathaway) and another couple.

According to the complaint, Follieri also used the funds for his $37,000-a month-apartment rent, medical bills for himself and his “then girlfriend,” as well as for orthodontist bills for his father.

Follieri and Hathaway, 25, dated for four years but split in June just before his arrest. Earlier this month, as she hosted Saturday Night Live, Hathaway poked fun at the incidents, saying, “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?”

• Reporting by RYAN PIENCIAK

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Source:www.People.com

It’s no secret that her love life was dramatically altered when her ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri was arrested for wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. But that’s not stopping Anne Hathaway from loving again.

She recently told press that there’s a new man in her life, and that she’s moving on from her painful past. “This guy I know in L.A. is kind of doing it for me right now. When I think of sexy, I think of him.”

Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s remake of “Alice in Wonderland.”

She told press, . “I have so many people coming out of the woodwork who really have never wanted to visit me on the set before just want to kind of come and hang out. Everyone just wants to meet Johnny. It might be my hardest role to date – to keep my cool.”

Source:www.celebrity-gossip.net

Moving on from jailed ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, Anne Hathaway told PEOPLE she is crushing on a new mystery man.

“This guy I know in L.A. is kind of doing it for me right now,” the actress told PEOPLE at the London premiere for her newest movie, Rachel Getting Married. “When I think of sexy, I think of him.”

“You know when sometimes you don’t know someone very well - you’ll probably never see them again - but you just meet them and you’re like ‘WOW, you really have it going on’?”

Hathaway’s due to spend time with another sexy guy - Johnny Depp - as filming starts for Tim Burton’s upcoming film, Alice in Wonderland, in which she plays the role of the White Queen.

Is she excited to work with Depp? “Uh, yeah, ya think?” Hathaway, 25, told PEOPLE. “I hope I don’t faint. I’m wearing a corset which is difficult enough, but then to have to wear a corset and be short-breathed around Johnny Depp?”

And her friends are buzzing with excitement at her upcoming costar. “I have so many people coming out of the woodwork who really have never wanted to visit me on the set before just want to kind of come and hang out,” she says. “Everyone just wants to meet Johnny.

“It might be my hardest role to date - to keep my cool.”

Meanwhile, Hathaway’s ex Follieri, who pleaded guilty last month to wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy, is preparing for his Oct. 23 sentencing.

Prosecutors said Monday, the Associated Press reports, that they urged the judge not to show leniency after learning that Follieri sent the judge a photo of himself and the pope in hopes of reducing his prison sentence.

Follieri agreed to four-plus years in prison during his guilty plea but last week his lawyers requested a three-year sentence instead.

Anne Hathaway’s personal life may have bottomed out this year, but her career is soaring.

The actress, 25, has been nominated - along with her Rachel Getting Married castmates - for best ensemble performance at the upcoming Gotham Independent Film Awards.

The awards, which will take place on Dec. 2 in Manhattan, also honor Woody Allen’s film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona for its ensemble performance (including Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz) and breakthrough actor - the IFP announced Monday.

“2008 has proven to be an extremely strong year for an immensely diverse group of filmmakers tackling a range of subjects and forms in new and dynamic ways,” Executive Director Michelle Byrd said.

Leading the nominations was Ballast, a Sundance Film Festival favorite about how one man’s suicide affects three different people.

This year’s nominees for breakout actor, a category whose previous winners include Ellen Page and Amy Adams, include Rosemary DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married), Rebecca Hall (Vicki Cristina Barcelona) and Melissa Leo (Frozen River).

David Letterman quizzed Anne Hathaway about the arrest of ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, as the visibly uncomfortable actress called her situation “pretty unusual.”

“Did you have any hints that there was a problem?” Letterman asked her.

“I don’t want to go into the specifics,” said Hathaway, who appeared on the Late Show Tuesday night to promote her film Rachel Getting Married, “but I will say that you do have to give me credit because as far as relationships crashing and burning goes, c’mon, I did pretty great. I mean, scorched that earth!”

Pressed further by Letterman if Follieri was in jail, Hathaway asked him, “Do you want to know his shoe size, too?”

The Devil Wears Prada star revealed that her relationship had ended months before Follieri pleaded guilty Sept. 10 to 14 counts of wire fraud, money laundering charges and conspiracy.

However, the actress, 25, is moving on from her breakup by shedding her old self.

“I quit smoking,” Hathaway said. “I quit for a while and then it was a stressful summer and started smoking again. But I just quit.”

Hathaway says her public breakup was the perfect time to make other changes in her life. “I quit drinking and I also gave up meat and fish and fun,” she said.

Despite all the heartache, Hathaway assures she is doing fine. “I’m very happy. I’m in a good place.”

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After her breakup with boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, Anne Hathaway is moving on with a fresh perspective and a positive attitude.

“Everything that has happened to me, good and bad, I feel has happened for a reason,” Hathaway told reporters at the Sept. 15 press day for her new film, the family drama Rachel Getting Married.

Adds Hathaway, “I’ve been made stronger from the good stuff and much, much stronger from the bad stuff.”

In the aftermath, Hathaway told W magazine in its October issue that she spent a week holed up in a friend’s house “in shock” before throwing herself into promoting Get Smart.

“I don’t want to put anything in a drawer but I do want to let things rest and heal,” Hathaway says.

The actress is currently getting praise for her turn as an unhinged sister of the bride in Rachel Getting Married, which is already garnering Oscar buzz for The Devil Wears Prada star.

Having been through her share of ups and downs lately, Hathaway has been careful to keep that type of talk in perspective.

“I’ve never done anything that warranted that before or garnered it so I’m enjoying having my work enjoyed,” she says. “Ultimately the buzz doesn’t matter until the nominations come out so I’m not really thinking about too much.”

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Though he doesn’t face sentencing until Oct. 3 after pleading guilty Wednesday to 14 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy, Raffaello Follieri has already begun meeting terms of his plea-bargain agreement.

Besides paying the federal government $2.4 million he made attracting investors to real-estate ventures, Follieri, 30, is also surrendering 12 watches - among them, a Rolex, a Cartier, a Harrods, a Donald Trump and three Omegas - and nine pieces of jewelry, reports The New York Times. The jewelry is believed to have belonged to Follieri’s former girlfriend, Anne Hathaway.

Those pieces reportedly include a gold-colored ring with light blue-green stone, a pair of silver earrings and blue and clear stones, a 16-inch five-strand necklace with pearl beads, and a 32-inch gold-colored chain with a red-brown stone and gold-colored tassel.

In addition, reports the New York Post, Follieri must forfeit some precious metals and jewelry he stored in the Bronx, as well as a Cartier figurine in a box and a Tiffany clock.

“He’s a con artist,” social acquaintance Paolo Zampolli, who works in real estate development, tells The Times. “He deserves what he gets.”

Hathaway, who admitted in a recent interview her world fell apart with Follieri’s downfall, has not been quoted as commenting since he made his guilty pleas Wednesday.

Anne Hathaway’s ex-boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, pleaded guilty to all 14 counts against him Wednesday morning in a Manhattan federal court.

Dressed in a navy prison outfit, the Italian businessman looked calm as he told the judge, “I know what I did was wrong.”

He then pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering.

“It’s very hard on him,” Edwards told the judge. He added to reporters: “There’s no outside time for him to really have any outside air. It’s a very, very hard place to be.”

He could be sentenced to up to 265 years in prison. Follieri, 30, agreed not to appeal a sentence less than 63 months in prison.

Follieri’s plea agreement includes a stipulation that he forfeit $2.44 million dollars, representing money he obtained through illegal activity. He also agreed to forfeit 12 watches and nine pieces of jewelry, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office .

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Burning question No. 1 at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday: Will exes Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston cross paths?

They arrive on different days, but in the movie biz, anything is possible. Pitt is due in Canada, sans Angelina Jolie, to hype Burn After Reading, his new Coen Brothers comedy with George Clooney. Aniston, meanwhile, will be talking up Management, a romantic comedy in which she’s wooed by Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson.

But those are just two of the 249 feature films set to screen and a few of the stars - cue Dakota Fanning, Ricky Gervais and Charlize Theron - set to shine over the 10-day festival, which has come to serve Hollywood as the annual unofficial launch of the Oscar race.

• After scoring big at last year’s festival with Juno, Superbad’s Michael Cera returns with Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. He plays a music-obsessed youth who finds love when he least expects it during a visit to New York City. The movie opens Oct. 3.

• In Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway stars as a woman who, following a stint in rehab, returns to her idyllic Connecticut hometown for the wedding of her older sister Rachel. Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) directed the comedic family drama, which opens in limited markets Oct. 3.

• Keira Knightley again dons sumptuous period petticoats and gowns for her title role in The Duchess, a biopic about Georgiana Spencer, a scandalous 18th century English aristocrat. Her costars include Ralph Fiennes and Charlotte Rampling. It opens Sept. 19.

• Irishman Colin Farrell works on his New Yawk accent in Pride and Glory, a crime drama in which he and Edward Norton star as brothers who are NYPD cops. Family bonds are tested as they uncover something rotten in the Big Apple. The film, which was scheduled to open earlier this year, is now set for release Oct. 24.

• Wedding Crashers star Rachel McAdams teams up with Tim Robbins and Michael Pe%26#241;a in The Lucky Ones, a drama about three soldiers returning home to the U.S. after serving in Iraq. The film, due to open Sept. 26, has been sitting on the shelf for months after Hollywood became hesitant following the box office failure of several war-themed movies - Rendition, Lions for Lambs, Stop-Loss - in late 2007 and early 2008.

• Rising British heartthrob Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe and 21) portrays a young Irishman in Belfast in the 1980s who finds himself unintentionally caught between the British Army and the IRA in Fifty Dead Men Walking. Ben Kingsley and Rose McGowan costar. The film does not yet have a U.S. release date.

Anne Hathaway broke off her relationship with Italian businessman Rafaello Follieri just hours before his arrest on charges of wire fraud and money laundering, according to a report in the October issue of Vanity Fair.

“You were the love of my life,” she told Follieri by phone on June 23, according to a friend who heard the conversation, Vanity Fair reports. “I’ll always love you. You know that, baby.” Later that day, Follieri was arrested and accused by federal prosecutors of defrauding investors of millions through claims he had connections with the Vatican.

Hathaway’s father, Jerry, had a private investigator friend check out Follieri three years ago, the story claims. “I regard my involvement in the situation … as fundamentally a private matter between a daughter and her father,” Jerry told the magazine.

Follieri is currently awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, unable to pay his $21 million bail.

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