CRIME OF FASHION: Scorned Wife and the Hitman
They were known as one of fashion's hottest power couples from Italy. Until one day when it came crashing down. Left by her husband for a younger, more glamorous woman, the jilted Patrizia Reggiani decided to hire a hitman to gun down her lowlife ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci. By the last name of the victim, you can tell this sordid affair was written like a stylish European classical film.
Maurizio Gucci was born on September 26, 1948 in Florence to parents Rodolfo Gucci and Sandra Ravel.
Rodolfo was one of six children born to Guccio Gucci, the original founder of the famous fashion brand, House of Gucci. Rodolfo was also an actor, known as Maurizio D'Ancora. He started in over 40 movies from 1929 to 1946. He met met his future wife while filming the movie Together in the Dark, and they married in 1940s. Their son was born 8 years after that, and was named after his father's stage name. In 1953, he left acting and went to work in the family business after the death of his father. Rodolfo worked alongside his other brothers: Vasco, Aldo and Ugo. The sister was not given a role in the company. As the business was left to all five brothers, they had prominent roles in the company but there was always a bitter fight of power between the siblings.
Vasco Gucci died in 1974, and after this Aldo and Rodolfo divided the business between themselves 50/50. Because of this, the children of Aldo felt that their uncle did not pull enough of his weight for the company's growth, so Aldo set up a perfume subsidiary and held 80% of the ownership to him and his three children. This feud eventually let to the family being at war over control.
PATRIZIA REGGIANI
Patrizia Reggiani Martinelli was born on December 2, 1948. She was born to a poor, single mother from Milan. She never knew her real father. Her mother worked as a laundress. When Patrizia was 12 years old, her mother remarried with Fernando Reggiani, who was a wealthy townsman. He took some time to legally adopt his new stepdaughter, but he spoiled her with new clothes, shoes and mink coats.
She always loved the finer things in life, and was always chasing wealthy men who would spoil her with expensive gifts. Patrizia was very focused on money, material things, and being the most well-known socialite in her circle. By the time she met Maurizio Gucci, when they were both in their early 20s, she was at the height of her fame in the Milanese social scene. She was well accepted in to the elite social cliques and had many suitors. Therefore, Maurizio, with his crossed front teeth and shy demeanor, didn't impress her. He was also feeling like an impostor, coming from Florence to Milan, which was a more cosmopolitan, higher fashion city.
Maurizio wasn't deterred by Patrizia's rejection, and wooed her with all the riches at his disposal and she finally ceded to his charms. They fell in love, and planned to get married. However, Rodolfo was firmly against this union. He removed Maurizio from the Gucci inheritance. He even spoke to the high bishop and Patrizia's stepfather, to not let them marry. Fernando Reggiani took offense to this and offered that he will pay the rest of Maurizio's university tuition and let him stay with them at the Reggiani home. He treated Maurizio like his own son. Finally, in 1972 Maurizio and Patrizia were wed, against all the haters!
The pair were really living the dream as they drove around Manhattan in a chauffeured car with personalized number plates that read ''Mauizia''. Besides the luxurious penthouse in New York, they had a ski chalet in Saint Moritz, a holiday home in Acapulco and a farm in Connecticut. They used to also travel to private islands on their wooden yacht, the Creole, which was a whooping 64 meters. Maurizio bought the yacht to celebrate the birth of their second daughter, Allegra.
Patrizia loved to attend parties, but she also loved to throw parties. She remembers fondly, in one interview, that they used to have a lot of color-themed parties, and one time they had a party that was orange and yellow, and that included the food, decor and outfits.
DEATH OF RODOLFO AND FAMILIAL STRIFE
In 1983, Rodolfo Gucci passed away and it was soon discovered that he left Maurizio a fifty percent share of the Gucci empire. As the brand was losing prestige, with the GG logo being printed on mass-produced canvas bags, and from over-licensing, Maurizio took his role seriously and reined in his control. He became company chairman and dedicated a lot of hours to rebuilding the high-end and exquisite craftsmanship reputation of the brand.
Going a bit back, there was a huge familial war going on as Maurizio took over the shares of his father. His favourite cousin, Paolo Gucci, wanted to open his own label, which triggered the other family members to rebel. After an immense power struggle, Maurizio and Paolo forced out the other family members, by getting them to sell their shares to Investcorp, and took control over the Gucci Empire.
The long hours spent at the office, and increasing stress and high workload, meant that Maurizio was becoming estranged from his wife. Before this, his wife was the number one right hand woman for him, advising him in all matters relating to the Gucci brand, but now he wanted to be the best and stopped listening to her. He was getting increasingly frustrated by her constant nagging and unwanted involvement. It also didn't help that Patrizia was by nature a superstitious and paranoid character. As her husband was pulling away, her anxiety was growing.
With the growing tension between the husband and wife, one evening Maurizio packed an overnight bag, left and never came back. He kissed his wife and kids goodbye as normal, and then sent word through a family doctor to Patrizia that he was going to divorce her. He was too scared to tell her face to face, in a fatal opposite of what attracted him to her in the first place. At this time, Patrizia was also diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. Luckily, she was able to treat it with an ensuing operation. She famously said that he came to visit her ''only to see if she was dead.'' Concurrently, Gucci was bleeding money under Maurizio's leadership. His inheritance was dwindling and the company profits were shrinking, so he was forced to sell the remainder of his shares to Investcorp for a price of $120 million USD in 1993. Some sources say it was even something in the ballpark of $150 million to $300 million USD, either way Maurizio became a very rich man.
Losing the family business was a huge failure from Maurizio in Patrizia's eyes. She took it as a personal insult. She is quoted to say: ''I was angry with Maurizio about many, many things.... above all, this. Losing the family business...He shouldn't have done that to me.'' This shows as well how interconnected Patrizia felt to the company. One source said that Maurizio asked her one day if she knew why the marriage failed, his answer was that she fancied herself as the Gucci president, but he was the only president.
During the divorce, there was a lot of back and forth about the settlements and what money Patrizia was going to accept. She famously dismissed his settlement proposals as a ''plate of lentils. Eventually, it took them a decade to resolve their differences, and Patrizia was rewarded a $1 million USD alimony per year.
The final frustration for Patrizia was the fact that Maurizio moved on with younger, beautiful Paola Frachi. They moved in together in a nice, expensive apartment and were engaged to be married. Maurizio was head over heels in love with his new partner, and she was also quite in love with him. Paola had to take some flack from the media, who labelled her as a ''glamorous gold digger''. However, she quickly pointed out that her previous husband, who she left for Maurizio, was much wealthier and it was just nonsense. She also had one son from the previous marriage, Charly, who was living with them.
WHERE DO I FIND A HITMAN?
It was common knowledge that Patrizia was on the lookout for a hitman. She asked her cleaner two times, and even asked her mother, babysitter, friends, and lawyers whether they knew someone who could take care of her ex-husband. Nobody believed that she was serious, and ignored her requests. However, Giuseppina (Pina) Auriemma was one person who did take her seriously.
Pina Auriemma was a self-proclaimed psychic that Patrizia met on a holiday in Ischia, Sicily, in 1973. She was a close confidant and best friend. In 1994, Pina moved in with Patrizia to help her write the a tell-all book about her life with Maurizio because she felt that her memory had been severely impacted by the surgery and tumor.
The women were at odds in court by providing very conflicting stories. Pina insisted that she reacted in a moment of weakness to her best friend's request. She needed money and decided to organise the hit as a way to make cash. Patrizia said that she had no clue that Pina went ahead to hire a hitman and she was blackmailed to paying the fee of $365,000 for the assassination.
SHOT IN THE BACK
March 27, 1995 began like any other day for Maurizio, who arrived at his private offices in Via Palestro 20. It was a beautiful spring day, and the businessman arrived carrying some magazines and greeted the doorman. Suddenly, Maurizio collapsed to the ground, he received three shots to the back and a fourth shot to the head. The shooter also shot the doorman, Giuseppe Onorato, twice in the arm. The doorman luckily survived, but Maurizio passed away quickly after being fatally wounded.
The police investigated the murder through many queries. Had he been involved in shady dealings? Was his family's feuds catching up with him? Some even speculated it could be a mob hit. For two years the police had no information and the case went cold. One evening on January 7, 1997 an anonymous caller telephoned to Filippo Ninni, the head of police for the region of Lombardia, and demanded to meet. The caller mentioned the ill-fated name: Gucci.
The caller wanted to rendezvous with Ninni as he was one of the main detectives on the Gucci case back in 1995. The informant mentioned at the encounter that he was staying at a one- star hotel in Milan, when he heard one of the employees boast about being responsible for recruiting the killer of Maurizio Gucci. After the tip came, the police decided to have a look into the case again. This led on a long and confusing journey that led them to find a remarkable assasination plot with the scorned ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, in the middle of it all. It was as if life became a movie in the Italian press, and soon she received the moniker ''Vedova Nera'' or ''Black Widow''.
At the trial, it was revealed that Patrizia was trying to hurry along the assassination plot, so that it could happen before Paola and Marizio had a chance to marry. Pina Auriemma testified that Patrizia couldn't stomach the fact that there would be a second Mrs Gucci and that she would have the status, wealth and power that Patrizia ''earned''. She was also worried for the children's inheritance, and what they could lose if the new couple had children.
Paola said that Patrizia even started to stalk them. The ex-wife still had friends in Maurizio's social circle that would report all the going-ons of Paola and Maurizio's plans. She would also call Maurizio mulitple times and have abusive tirades and throwing death threats at him. If she wasn't able to get him on the phone, she would post to him awful cassette tapes filled with threats and saying things like he is a ''monster'' for leaving her.
Paola begged Maurizio to take a bodyguard as she was very worried that Patrizia would attempt something horrible, but he would brush her off as he didn't believe that his ex would attempt anything because of their two daughters.
In a twisted move, the day after Maurizio's death, an eviction notice arrived at Paola's door. She was ordered to leave the lush penthouse she shared with Maurizio and her son. She could see by the notarized time stamp that the papers were done the previous day, at 11.00am, barely 3 hours after Maurizio was fatally shot. The eviction notice was ordered by none other than the vindictive Patrizia Reggiani. She soon moved in to the apartment with her daughters and lived there for the next 2 years, until one of the accomplices boasted about the shooting.
TRIAL AND CONVICTION
After the tip off and police investigation, it was found a total of five people were found guilty and sentenced in connection to the crime. This included Patrizia Reggiani and her four accomplices. They were her psychic Pina, the hitman Benedetto Ceraulo, the night porter from Pina's hotel who organised the hitman Ivano Savioni, and the getaway driver Orazio Cicala.
In 1998 the convictions were passed. Benedetto Ceraulo received a life sentence. Patrizia Regianni and Orazio Cicala both got 26 years in prison. Pina Auriemma and Ivano Savioni got 29 year sentences. All of these were eventually reduced.
In October 2016, after serving 18 years of her sentence, Patrizia was released from prison.
References:
- https://mrsgucci.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/patrizia/
- https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/jul/24/the-gucci-wife-and-the-hitman-fashions-darkest-tale
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/sofialottopersio/2019/12/20/murder-in-the-house-of-gucci/?sh=d7b57a5f0a62
- https://editorialist.com/news/house-of-gucci-true-story/
- https://www.popsugar.co.uk/entertainment/house-gucci-true-story-maurizio-gucci-murder-48211961?utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=US:FI&utm_source=www.google.com
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