Gianni Versace and Chico Forti
Fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered in Miami on July 15th 1997. According to the reconstruction by the police, Versace was killed by a notorious gigolo called Andrew Cunanan, who in turn committed suicide after carrying out the crime.
A lot has been written and said about the Versace case, but from the outset doubts were raised about the truth of the story. If the Miami Police Department was convinced the culprit was the gigolo Cunanan, its opinion was not shared by all those who at that time followed closely the investigations conducted by an Italian named Chico Forti.
A lot has been written and said about the Versace case, but from the outset doubts were raised about the truth of the story. If the Miami Police Department was convinced the culprit was the gigolo Cunanan, its opinion was not shared by all those who at that time followed closely the investigations conducted by an Italian named Chico Forti.
Enrico Chico Forti is an Italian originally from Trento, a television producer and investigative cameraman. At the time of the Versace murder he took a lot of pains to find out the truth and bravely went about poking his nose into prohibited places, even managing to buy the houseboat where Cunanan was found dead (and which sank mysteriously shortly thereafter). Chico Forti was going to shoot a documentary and therefore, as stated in the Italian newspaper “Il Resto del Carlino,” also went to talk to Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, who said: “You’re looking for the truth about the Versace case? You’re really looking for trouble! Look, this is not poker or blackjack. Maybe it's roulette, but it’s Russian roulette. Do you really want to play with a pistol pointed to your head?” A lot of people tried to discourage him, they wanted him off the case. Even the police were not at all happy about his meddling. “Do you really think you can make allegations and get away with them?” a police officer in Miami asked him one day.
Chico Forti, a man always dedicated to nonviolence, went bravely on his way, and after spending months on the investigation he collected all the documents in his possession and finally succeeded in making an important short film titled “The Smile of the Medusa,” a documentary broadcast in Italy on Raitre, one of the national TV Channels.
With this documentary Chico Forti succeeded in demolishing the official version put out by the Miami Police Department. “What I have shown is that the gigolo Andrew Cunanan was dead when he was taken to the houseboat. The story of his suicide is just a farce,” declared Forti.
With this documentary Chico Forti succeeded in demolishing the official version put out by the Miami Police Department. “What I have shown is that the gigolo Andrew Cunanan was dead when he was taken to the houseboat. The story of his suicide is just a farce,” declared Forti.
His powerful allegations not only undermined the entire work of the Miami Police Department but also its credibility and authority. They were contained in a documentary that opened up new scenarios and controversy. Just think of the important statements made in recent years by exponents of the Italian underworld, like the case of the ’Ndrangheta supergrass Giuseppe Di Bella, who told Italian investigators that Versace was not assassinated by Cunanan but by a hitman hired by senior leaders of the mob, because Versace was heavily in debt to the 'Ndrangheta and no longer able to pay. Today the 'Ndrangheta is one of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations. It has succeeded in ousting Cosa Nostra from the U.S. and teamed up with Mexican and Colombian gangsters to control the monopoly in the import of cocaine to Europe. The Washington Government rates it a “growing threat,” the equal of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. It is global in reach and uses a network very similar to Al Qaeda’s, explains the FBI leadership, citing the latest report of the anti-mafia parliamentary committee. In the recession-stricken States it is buying everything from New York to Miami. The 'Ndrangheta has now expanded like wildfire and in Florida it is one of the few criminal organizations capable of infiltrating everywhere and supplying capital to an economy in crisis. This is why the statements made by the 'Ndrangheta boss are never to be underestimated. Another valuable source apart from Giuseppe di Bella is an important member of the Calabrian crime world named Coco Trovato. He told the Judiciary that the Italian 'Ndrangheta regularly supplied the Versace Family with drugs. More recently, “Paolo Martino,” another important criminal of the 'Ndrangheta arrested by police in Milan, during an interview with the magistrates in Milan, spoke of his relationship with the fashion elite. Referring to Santo Versace (Gianni's brother) and said “He saw me growing up”
( read This piece in Humor Chic ).
( read This piece in Humor Chic ).
In this whole story the information that emerges is very murky, with vested interests, debts and loans, the flow of drugs, contacts and crime all circling around the “Maison Versace.” So let's just step back a moment and try to understand how Chico Forti fits into all this. At the end of February 1998 the “Miami Herald” published an article about an Italian businessman 39 years old called Chico Forti, who was arrested in Miami suspected of defrauding the owner of a hotel chain, Anthony Pike, whose son had been killed a few days earlier in circumstances that remain unclear. Moreover, the “Miami Herald” added that Forti wanted to make a film about the murder of Gianni Versace and so bought exclusive rights to shoot the scenes in the houseboat where Cunanan killed himself. He concluded by writing that Forti had been denied freedom on bail and the Miami police did not specify whether he was also suspected of murdering Pike.
Not long after his arrest Chico Forti was handed his final conviction. Held in Florida since October 11, 1999, he received a life sentence for murdering Dalle Pike, killed with the same type of pistol used to shoot Versace: two bullets in the head. A connection, ritual or sheer coincidence?According to the reconstruction by the Miami Police Department, Anthony Pike was the owner of a hotel that Chico Forti was interested in purchasing. Forti attempted to defraud Anthony Pike and, when his son Dale Pike discovered this, Forti decided to kill him. Forti pleaded innocent from the very start and says he was convicted on very flimsy evidence, cobbled together by the police in retaliation for having investigated the death of Gianni Versace and casting suspicion on the Miami Police Department. Furthermore, the Court completely acquitted Forti of the charge of fraud. So there is no motive, no witnesses, no weapons, no DNA, nothing.
So why has Chico Forti been incarcerated in Everglades prison on a life sentence ever since June 2000, exactly 12 years?
So why has Chico Forti been incarcerated in Everglades prison on a life sentence ever since June 2000, exactly 12 years?
Just read the incredible words with which the prosecution closed its indictment:
“There is no need to prove that the accused is the murderer to demonstrate that the defendant is guilty.”
What? We don’t need evidence to confirm that the accused is the murderer? This is not justice but a trap, as confirmed by judge and lawyer Ferdinando Imposimato after carefully analyzing the judicial record, including documents that have “disappeared ” or are still secret. Imposimato explains with legal arguments why the life sentence handed down to Chico Forti violates the basic principles of due process.
So who framed Chico Forti?
“There is no need to prove that the accused is the murderer to demonstrate that the defendant is guilty.”
What? We don’t need evidence to confirm that the accused is the murderer? This is not justice but a trap, as confirmed by judge and lawyer Ferdinando Imposimato after carefully analyzing the judicial record, including documents that have “disappeared ” or are still secret. Imposimato explains with legal arguments why the life sentence handed down to Chico Forti violates the basic principles of due process.
So who framed Chico Forti?
Chico Forti has the right to a retrial, a proper trial, the kind he never had. Events like this are a tragedy that could strike down any of us. Conscience has to take precedence over the sea of indifference. Only by breaking down the wall of silence can we reclaim the right to hope.
Courage Chico!
Following is the video documentary made by Chico Forti with his investigation of Gianni Versace’s murder.
Courage Chico!
Following is the video documentary made by Chico Forti with his investigation of Gianni Versace’s murder.
Partial - Report TV by Chico Forti - Versace, Cunanan. Miami
Complete Report
Report TV (1 / 5) by Chico Forti - Versace, Cunanan. Miami
Report TV (2/ 5) by Chico Forti - Versace, Cunanan. Miami
Report TV (3 / 5) by Chico Forti - Versace, Cunanan. Miami
Report TV (4 / 5) by Chico Forti - Versace, Cunanan. Miami
Report TV (5 / 5) by Chico Forti Versace, Cunanan. Miami
The true story of Chico Forti.
The incredible story of Enrico "Chico" Forti
An innocent man sentenced to life in prison
The facts
On June 15th, 2000, after a twenty-five day trial, the Italian entrepreneur from Trento, Enrico Forti, called "Chico", was found guilty of murder by a jury from Dade County in Miami, "for having personally and/or with another person or persons still unknown to the State, acting as the instigator and accomplice, each for their own participation and/or execution of a common criminal plan, intentionally and pre-meditated caused the death of Dale Pike."
The sentence left everyone present, along with those who had also followed the trial, astonished, incredulous that a jury could emit “without a reasonable doubt” a guilty verdict based solely on feeble and mixed up circumstantial evidence.
Afterwards, careful inspection and examination of the “circumstantial evidence” produced great doubt and suspicion that the events had transpired in a completely different way than what the prosecution had stated.
A meticulous evaluation of all the accusations, one by one, of the facts and prior events, reveals tampering of “circumstantial evidence” by the prosecution, whose sole purpose was to secure a guilty verdict.
Prior Event
Enrico Forti, called “Chico”, was born in Trento in 1959 where he lived until he graduated from the local science high school in 1978. Following that, he moved to Bologna to attend Isef, the physical education university.
Physically gifted, he dedicated himself to practicing many sports, particularly windsurfing, and in the 1980’s he had great success at a worldwide level.
In the 1990’s, he moved to Miami, Florida, where he took on the role of filmmaker and television presenter. ater he dedicated himself to real-estate mediation and it was while carrying out this activity that he met Anthony Pike, who presented himself as the owner of a hotel, of the same name, on the island of Ibiza in Spain.
This hotel had enjoyed a certain amount of notoriety in the 1980’s as many people from the international jet-set scene frequented it but soon after it suffered a disastrous decline.
Towards the end of 1997, Anthony Pike traveled to Miami, a guest of a German man named Thomas Knott, who had been staying at Williams Island for some time in an apartment right below Enrico Forti’s apartment. The two men had been “friends” during the Ibiza hotel’s golden age, as Knott was a regular guest there. Only later, the true background of these two came out. First of all, in that time period, Pike found himself in financial difficulty.
Knott was a“schemer” who was sentenced to six years in jail in Germany for billionaire scams; he had disappeared during a probationary period and had reappeared in Miami (as a guest of other Germans) in Williams Island, where he used the cover as a “tennis instructor” using fake documents (procured for him by Pike). In reality he continued his “profession” as a scam artist (25 charges in little less than 6 months) with his final scam being the one he attempted on Enrico Forti, summoning Anthony Pike in Miami with the intent of selling Forti this hotel, even though it had not been under Pike’s possession for over a year at that point.
During this negotiation Anthony’s son, Dale Pike, came into the picture, even though he had been distanced from the Ibiza hotel in the past due to serious disagreements with his father and probably also with Thomas Knott, his trouble-making friend. Dale Pike had to quickly leave Malaysia, for unknown reasons, and ran to his father for help, since he found himself without any money.
Anthony Pike didn’t have any financial funds available either, so he asked Enrico Forti, with whom he was negotiating with for the sale of the hotel, for some help. Forti was helpful and at the end of January 1998 he paid for Dale Pike’s flight from Malaysia to Spain.
Fifteen days later, Anthony Pike telephoned Enrico Forti once more telling him about an upcoming visit of his to Miami, this time accompanied by his son Dale. They were expected to arrive Sunday, February 15, 1998. He convinced Enrico Forti to front the money to pay for the airline tickets and Forti once again agreed to pay for both tickets.
Two days before the departure, Anthony made one last call to Enrico Forti, claiming to have personal problems, and moving their appointment in New York to the following Wednesday, February 18th.
His son Dale, would, however, still be travelling alone to Miami on Sunday February 15th, and Anthony asked Forti if he could go and pick him up at the airport and allow him to stay at his house.
Forti agreed, but after being picked up at the airport, Dale asked him if he could drop him off at a Key Biscayne restaurant’s parking lot, where some of Knott’s friends were waiting for him and with whom he would be staying with for a few days, until his father arrived.
So, Forti gave him a ride to where Dale asked to be taken and left him at the parking lot around 7pm on that Sunday.
His contact with Dale Pike, who he had never seen nor met before that day, lasted about half an hour.
On February 16th, a surfer found Dale Pike’s corpse in a grove along the beach not too far from where Enrico Forti had left him.
He had been “executed” with two shots to the head from a .22 caliber gun, stripped naked yet left with the green piece of paper handed out by customs when you enter the United States.
There were also other personal objects, which made identifying the body simple.
The time of death was estimated to have been between 8pm and 10 pm the previous day, a short time after bidding farewell to Enrico Forti.
It was shown that at 8pm Enrico Forti had been at the Fort Lauderdale airport.
In fact, at the trial he was accused and condemned as the “mastermind” behind the murder.rior events
The deceit
The accusations brought against Enrico Forti were based on the fact that at the beginning he kept quiet about the circumstances of Dale Pike’s arrival on Sunday, February 15, 1998, and he omitted the truth about their meeting at the Miami airport.
In the days following the murder, it seemed that Enrico Forti was not at all worried about Dale Pike’s fate. In fact, it was only on Wednesday the 18th, while he was visiting his father in New York, that he came to know of the homicide.
Since the meeting with Anthony Pike had been skipped and he hadn’t heard from him, Forti immediately returned to Miami the next day, February 19th. He willingly went to the police department, to respond to a summons since he was a person thought to be informed of the facts.
It was during this summons – during which he ended up being interrogated as a main suspect in the homicide – that the police falsely informed him that aside from Dale, his father Anthony has also been found murdered in New York.
In reality, Anthony Pike was alive and had been under police protection since the day before.
Terrorized by the occurring events, Forti denied having met Dale Pike.
On the evening of February 20th, having realized the seriousness of the situation, he returned to the police to deliver a series of documents related to his business dealings with the victim’s father.
Naively, he presented himself without an attorney present, in part due to the fact that he had talked to an ex-chief of the homicide team that he knew, who had assured him that all they needed was to clear up some information to help the police with their investigation.
Instead, he was immediately arrested and underwent an exhausting interrogation that lasted 14 hours, during which he admitted to having met Dale Pike on February 15th in the hours before his murder and to having accompanied him to the Rusty Pelican’s parking lot in Virginia Key.
This admission came about thanks to a trap, which was made in order to confuse him, therefore forcing him to lie subjugated from the fear and desperation. This is a legitimate and admissible technique, according to the American system, but his admission was treacherously obtained by way of deceit.
The prosecutions fabrications
Immediately, with the first arrest, Enrico Forti was accused of fraud, circumvention of incapacity and complicity in murder.
The jury, however, was deceived in their final judgment because they were never informed that Enrico Forti had previously been absolved of all charges of fraud and circumvention of incapacity.
Released on bail, during the following twenty months he was, in fact cleared of all charges that dealt with fraud (eight).
Fraud was unjustly used as a motive for the murder.
We quote a literal translation from the introductory text of the states theory on which the prosecution based their accusations.
“The State’s theory about the case is that Enrico Forti had Dale Pike murdered because Forti knew that Dale would have interfered with Forti’s plan to acquire, in a fraudulent manner, 100% of the interest from a hotel in Ibiza from his demented father. Dale had traveled to Miami from the island of Ibiza so that Forti could “show him the money” – four million dollars requested for the transaction – for the purchase of the hotel from his father. Forti simply didn’t have it. Instead, Forti met Dale at the airport and led him to his death.”
There is not a single word of truth in this statement.
It is not true that Dale Pike, the victim, was an obstacle for Forti’s plan to acquire the hotel. He had no power.
It was not true that his father, the hotelier, Tony Pike, was old sick and disabled, incapacitated and senile. On the contrary, at the time many considered him an astute and sharp businessman. However, at the trial there were no documents presented to prove his presumed dementia, either by the court or by any medical committee.
It is not true that Enrico Forti wanted to take 100% possession of the hotel via fraudulent means. In reality, it was discovered that the hotelier was trying to sell a hotel to Forti that hadn’t been in his possession for quite some time. This was the real case of fraud. Anthony Pike had admitted it in a deposition in London before the trial, clearly stating that he intended to sell Chico a “white elephant”
The prosecutor kept this fact hidden from the jury.
It isn’t true that Dale had traveled to Miami to “see the money”, four-five million dollars that Forti would have had to pay. The sale agreement stipulated that the payment would be made in the arc of six months, part of it in cash, part of it through the exchange of two apartments and part of it with the accession of the hotel’s debt through banks. The overvaluation of putting the price of the hotel at four-five million dollars was an invented estimate. Even now, its real value is less than a third of that.
As can be seen, fraud was used as the basis for all the accusations.
Instead, the exact opposite is true. The hotelier was trying to sell a hotel that hadn’t been his property for quite some time. Therefore, Enrico Forti was the one who was swindled and not the swindler and therefore the motive was completely made up and inexistent.
The prosecutions speech
Thursday, June 15, 2000, around noon.
The Prosecutor Reid Rubin had just finished his closing argument, eyeing the jury as if he has just presented his “masterpiece”.
It truly was a masterpiece, from the moment in which he had been able to build and move forward an argument for a trial without any supporting evidence to uphold the allegations.
Rubin certainly left nothing to improvisation, as it took him twenty-eight months to prepare his closing argument.
A record for U.S. courts, since usually most trials are concluded within 6 months of the arraignment.
Certainly, this enormous use of time and (Florida State’s) money must have meant a lot for his career or for the interests of the court if he was able to easily obtain a series of extensions, until his masterpiece was ready.
Undoubtedly, the artist Reid Rubin had a lot of advantages in reaching his conclusions.
First of all, he had the incredible advantage of giving his closing argument without the defense being able to counter, so that any theory he wished to bring to the jury, whether real or alleged, relying solely on an imaginative reconstruction of events, was no longer disputable.
Anything can be said when you run no risk of being called out on it.
How is it possible that in a case where a man’s life hangs in the balance, that the last word comes from the prosecutor?
Simple: the American legal process foresees that the final word awaits the defense when the defendant exercises his right of not responding or is not called to the witness stand.
Who was aware of this rule? Certainly not Enrico Forti!
The prosecutor obviously knew about it, and he took advantage of this opportunity, placing all his “bets” on this final statement he was allotted and also taking advantage of the fact that the jury had to make it’s verdict based solely on their memories of the trial. It is therefore logical that what the jury remembers best is the prosecution’s final words, rather than the defense’s. This is especially true when the speaker is particularly good, and there is no doubt that Reid Rubin is just that.
The main responsibility, however, lies on the defense lawyers: they also knew about this rule. Therefore, it is normal to ask oneself: why concede this huge advantage to the prosecution and why wasn’t anything done to avoid this trap?
The explanation given by Enrico Forti’s lawyers for counseling him not to take the stand is alarming: “You lied, therefore exposing yourself to the massacre the prosecution could take on your image. It’s best not to risk it. Furthermore, since there is no evidence, no jury in the world would be able to issue a guilty verdict against you!”
Naturally, the prosecutor was careful not to call Enrico Forti to the stand either. His plan was based on this possibility: being able to have the last word in order to convince a jury that, as it happens in the majority of cases, might not have been very attentive during the trial.
A bit too late in the case, during the prosecutor’s case, the defense made an infinite number of objections, many of which were overruled, some were sustained, but with little effect.
The judge, on almost all occasions, would tell the lawyers to raise the question in an appeal, an appeal which would then be systematically refused.
The Verdict
After the conclusion of the prosecution’s closing argument, the jury retired to a closed session to deliberate.
Thursday, June 15, 2000, around 4pm. A few hours were enough for the jury to emit a guilty verdict.
The court’s decision in their sentencing, of which there is a literal translation below, was incredible and incomprehensible:
“The court does not have the evidence that you, Mr. Forti, pulled the trigger, but I have a feeling, beyond every doubt, that you were the instigator of the crime. Your accomplices have not been found, but they will be one day and they will also meet your fate. Take this man to the state penitentiary. I sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole”!
Civil death was inflicted on Enrico Forti based solely on a “feeling”!
Afterwards, regardless of the fact that it was clearly shown that Enrico Forti was a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, the various courts, without justification or explanation, all systematically rejected five appeals for review of the trial.
