We are all post-reality and post-truth now. We live as easily online as we do in meatspace. Rumour flies a million times round the world and is established as fact before the truth has even realised there’s a problem, let alone started pulling its boots on. Our elected politicians lie with impunity and thieve from the public purse without consequence. Possess actual knowledge of something and be decried as an elitist and/or establishment stooge. Possess a plausible manner and/or an array of sockpuppet accounts and become a leader of credulous men.
And yet, still, the sheer gall and effrontery of the genuine, large-scale grifter, the person who builds a fantasy land for themselves and forces everyone to live in it remains compelling. We have had a slew of recent dramas and documentaries on the subject, and now here’s another tale of a real-life grifter par excellence before which to sit and boggle. Devil’s Advocate: The Mostly True Story of Giovanni Di Stefano (Sky Documentaries) is a three-part examination of the rise and fall of Giovanni di Stefano, AKA John di Stefano, AKA Mr Murder, AKA the eponymous advocate. He was the lawyer, who made his name securing the notorious gangster and fraudster John “Goldfinger” Palmer an appeal against the confiscation of much of his fortune, which ended in Palmer retaining most of the money. He then went on to become famous for, as he put it, “defending the indefensible”. His list of clients read like a Who’s Who of criminality, ranging from Nicholas van Hoogstraten (finding a way to overturn the property tycoon’s manslaughter conviction) all the way up to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević (whom Di Stefano apparently befriended, along with the Serbian paramilitary leader, Željko “Arkan” Ražnatović, when he fled Hollywood for the then war zone in Yugoslavia to escape the consequences of a dubious purchase of MGM), via the likes of Harold Shipman, Ian Brady and various infamous others.
