"Lawyer" Giovanni DiStefano gets a 14 year sentence.

[rohrl]

I'm not sure if this has passed PH by or if I've just missed it. The story is from last week.

Well what a massive surprise. Giovanni DiStefano, self-styled lawyer to the rich and shameless turns out to be a Walter Mitty liar and fraudster.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21969624

I had an argument with a barrister I know about five years ago when I suggested that this guy was an unqualified fraudster who would one day be found out. I was told, by the barrister, that this couldn't possibly be true and that DiStefano's credentials must all be in order or he'd have been stopped from peddling his trade years ago.

I'm surprised frankly that anyone with the means to hire expensive legal representation would have given money to DiStefano but there we are.

[Magog]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more comment here as well. I also wonder how he didn't get rumbled sooner. It certainly seems like he was a real smoke and mirrors man with some nasty connections. I always got the impression he was one of those people who was very good at what they did and was a thorn in the side of the establishment, I seem to remember he got Nicholas Van Hoogstraten off that Manslaughter charge. I wonder where most of his wealth and power came from, 14 years certainly seems like a long sentence for those charges.

[Deva Link]

rohrl said:

I was told, by the barrister, that this couldn't possibly be true and that DiStefano's credentials must all be in order or he'd have been stopped from peddling his trade years ago.

How does this happen? If he's not registered to practice here (or in Italy) isn't there a list that you, or anyone else, could have checked against?

[Aretnap]

rohrl said:

I had an argument with a barrister I know about five years ago when I suggested that this guy was an unqualified fraudster who would one day be found out. I was told, by the barrister, that this couldn't possibly be true and that DiStefano's credentials must all be in order or he'd have been stopped from peddling his trade years ago.

Reminds me of the old joke about two economists walking down the street who spot a twenty pound note on the ground. The younger of the two is about to bend down and pick it up when the older, wiser economist says to him "don;t waste your time, that's not a twenty pound note". "How do you know? asks the younger one. "Well," says the wise old economist, "if it really was a twenty pound note, somebody would have picked it up by now."

[rohrl]

Deva Link said:

How does this happen? If he's not registered to practice here (or in Italy) isn't there a list that you, or anyone else, could have checked against?

This confused me too. I'm sure there must a list of UK barristers and the Law Society could tell you if someone is qualified as a solicitor. I wouldn't be amazed to find that getting such info from the Italians might not be quite as straightforward. Occasionally one hears of bogus doctors and dentists of course and the same must apply. We take a lot on trust in our day-to-day transactions.

[Fittster]

I'd be interest to know how many of his cases he won.

[Pesty]

Fittster said:

I'd be interest to know how many of his cases he won.

Or if the ones he lost can get a re trial or free on a technicality.

[Derek Smith]

Magog said:

I'm surprised there hasn't been more comment here as well. I also wonder how he didn't get rumbled sooner. It certainly seems like he was a real smoke and mirrors man with some nasty connections. I always got the impression he was one of those people who was very good at what they did and was a thorn in the side of the establishment, I seem to remember he got Nicholas Van Hoogstraten off that Manslaughter charge. I wonder where most of his wealth and power came from, 14 years certainly seems like a long sentence for those charges.

He was rumbled, and by the Private Eye. There was a whole series of articles on him around 10 years ago. I believe they had threats of litigation and all that but they carried on with them. I wonder that in the current days of exemplary damages against newspapers they would risk it.

He was allowed to carry on because people are gullible. We all are. He massaged people's conceit and was all but untouchable.

Typical conman.