Benita Alexander, the journalist who unmasks a swindler and bigamist doctor who promised her marriage in The Great Surgeon of Deception

Kate Winslet claims that the Oscar she won in 2009 The reader (A secret passion), he keeps it in the bathroom to allow his visitors to have a moment alone with him and dramatize your triumph in front of the mirror. However, in some psychological way, it is a way to demonstrate the meaning that rewards have in experiential terms.

Benita Alessandro is a prestigious Emmy Award-winning producer and journalist for the North American television network NBC. By 2013, as part of his duties, he interviewed a prestigious surgeon who was revolutionizing the world.

Paolo Macchiarini He was considered a forerunner of regenerative medicine, having created what was believed to be the world’s first synthetic trachea, which he used in risky surgeries along with stem cell procedures in patients with very serious situations.

He performed his operations in the most prestigious hospitals in the world and became famous, obtaining countless research funds and rubbing shoulders with the great figures of world power.

Something strange about Benita during the service She was fascinated by this Italian born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1958, graduated from the University of Pisa and with two doctorates from the University of Franche-Comté in France.

Seen from afar, everything seemed overly exaggerated. The perfect Italian: handsome, lucky with money, prestigious in his profession, free from personal responsibilities and romantic like a caricature of a spaghetti movie.

He was intelligently close, but moderate, although present with flowers, cards and details of the day after the interview. “There were rose petals on the floor and lipstick messages on the mirror,” Benita Alexander herself explains in the docuseries. The great surgeon of deceptionwhich can be seen on Netflix.

Paolo Macchiarini was a busy man in that period: congresses, conferences, tracing of possible tracheas to grow, masterclasses, fundraising meetings, interviews with medical teams and with relatives of patients potentially candidates for transplantation. What may have been excuses for his travels were verifiable facts.

Benita found few things curious. One of these was the multiplicity of phones: “I used half a dozen,” she says. She told me that she helped him manage time differences and keep his work organized. I later found out it was a way to hide her marriage and other relationships.”

However, what could have been one of many double life stories, the Macchiarini case went beyond.

I’ll give you the moon

At the end of 2013, months after their meeting, the doctor had already taken Benita to Venice. In the gondola he proposed to herevent which, according to the specialist’s extensive agenda, would take place towards the end of 2015.

Meanwhile, every meeting was a new surprise. LPope Francis would marry you, the Clintons and Obamas would attend, they would do it in a castle in the Italian countryside… Brenda was blind. Immersed in a Disney movie, all I could do was open my eyes bigger and bigger and celebrate. However, amazement overshadows reason.

His work was the tip of the iceberg. A small article appeared in The New York Times In November 2014, it was revealed that Sweden’s Karolinska University Hospital had launched an investigation into a surgeon considered a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine, after allegations that he had not received ethical approvals for experimental operations on patients and that he had misled journals doctors about the success of the procedures.

Then Of the 7 who attended, 6 had diedas he toured the world presenting the success of his transplants.

The Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in medicine, noted at the time that it had appointed an independent expert to investigate complaints against Macchiarini, a visiting professor who had operated on three patients in Stockholm.

Faced with the news, Benita confronted Macchiarini, who discredited the issue and reduced it to a bureaucratic confusion.

But his journalistic nose was lit. She decided to travel to interview patients’ relatives. The bricks of the world were falling.

The structure completely collapsed when he discovered two other partners going on at the same time as his own relationship.: the Italian Emanuela Pecchia, with whom Macchiarini was married and has two children, a boy and a girl; and also Ana Paula Bernardes, whom he had met in 2010 when he had operated on his son Danilo, who died shortly after and with whom he had a daughter.

The latter relationship ended in 2016, when Bernardes, following the public scandal, discovered his partner’s relationship with Benita Alexander. She was devastated. “The world had collapsed,” she explains. Everything I had faith in didn’t exist. The shock lasted a few months, but I didn’t stop reporting it wherever I could.making use of my professional skills.”

Macchiarini was prosecuted in Sweden and Italy, not only for misconduct and lack of ethics, but for falsifying data from his investigations.

An investigative report on Swedish television questioned the existence of animal tests on his synthetic trachea before he began experimenting with real patients. In June 2023 he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison in the case of three patients who died after the procedures. It is estimated that he will serve his sentence in Madrid, where he has settled.

In a press conference after the sentence, together with his lawyers, he declared: “Intent to harm is the most terrible accusation that can be made against a doctor. There were 20, 25 people in the operating room. What surprises me is why am I here alone?”

Goodbye guilt

Meanwhile, after having unmasked Macchiarini, Benita Alexander had to get her life back on track. She was strengthened by the idea of ​​accompanying other women who face deception similar to what she suffered.

-When life changes completely in a second, how do you move forward?

-First you immediately go into a state of shock. You feel numb and may have difficulty sleeping, eating, or doing anything normal. The profound sadness that results is devastating. But the most important thing is to understand that what happened is not your fault.

-When you are lied to a lot, telling everyone can cause embarrassment. Is it nice to tell it?

-I think it’s very important to talk about this. Too many women remain silent because they feel ashamed and humiliated for being deceived and believing the scammer’s lies. It’s normal to feel ashamed and want to hide. It would have been much easier for me to remain silent.. But if we remain silent, these men will continue to get away with it.

-How did you overcome it?

-At first you are paralyzed. Then you feel humiliated and ashamed, wondering how you, an intelligent woman, could fall for these lies. You question yourself, which is very difficult. You need to give yourself time to trust yourself again. It is very difficult to admit that you have been cheated on.

-How can you not feel responsible for what happened?

-It is essential to know that what happened to you is not your fault at all. These scammers are criminals. They are cunning, manipulative liars who have nefarious intentions from the first moment they enter your life. They are pathological liars.

I was a normal person in love, but I was lied to from day one. I only did two things: I fell in love and I decided to trust the person I loved. It’s not a crime. Scammers have what I call a “vulnerability radar.” They know exactly who they can target. It could be anything: maybe you just got divorced or went through a difficult separation, maybe someone close to you died. You want someone to hug you and tell you that everything will be okay.

-I would like you to tell me about your resilience.

-When this first happened, I made a very deliberate decision to not let Macchiarini’s atrocious lies change me. I have always been a positive, fun-loving, romantic person and I was determined not to let it take that away from me.

I was determined not to become a bitter, angry person because of him. He has already done enough damage to my life and I refused to let him do more.. So, I worked very hard to continue to be the Benita I always was before he came into my life.

-Can you give us some ideas for those going through these crises?

-It is very important not to isolate yourself. You have to rely on your friends and family. The key to resilience is that you can’t let it take over your life. You should continue to do the things that bring you joy, whatever they are.

For me, this meant spending time with my daughter, going dancing with my friends, going to Pilates classes, writing in my journal, and always finding a way to laugh. I love doing it. For me, laughing at yourself and finding humor even in the darkest and most difficult situations is the way to survive anything.