US EditionSelf-Styled Miracle Worker Whose Followers Claimed Could Multiply Gnocchi Charged with Fraud | News Channel 3-12
Nearly €400,000 in donations were collected from pilgrims over six years and allegedly misused for personal expenses, prosecutors said.
- Thursday, the prosecutor's office in Civitavecchia confirmed that Gisella Cardia and her husband Gianni Cardia have been charged with fraud, and they are due to stand trial in April.
- Prosecutors allege the couple staged apparitions to make the Madonna statue seem to weep blood and transmitted messages from God and Satan, while Gisella Cardia promoted miraculous food multiplication at prayer events at the shrine.
- The probe began in 2023 after a former follower contacted police, who tested blood from the statue and found it matched Gisella Cardia's DNA, Emiliano Giardina said.
- Prosecutors allege the donations were used for site renovations and a $40,000 car instead of the promised children's hospital, the prosecutor's office in Civitavecchia says.
- The Vatican warned pilgrims and judged the reported apparitions not supernatural, while followers told media about unusual claims of one box of pizza multiplying to feed many; the couple's lawyer Solange Marchignoli said Cardia welcomed the trial to clarify recent months of controversy.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Self-styled miracle worker whose followers claimed could multiply gnocchi charged with fraud
A self-styled clairvoyant who said a statue of the Virgin Mary cried tears of blood and claimed she could multiply gnocchi for her followers, has been charged with fraud, along with her husband. They are due to stand trial in April.
The Italian MP exposes "crime plan" of an Italian viewer who won thousands of euros to "invent" faithful with false blood tears of statue of Virgin Mary. A woman was indicated by tax fraud.
A woman who drew hundreds of pilgrims into a city near Rome, claiming that the statue of the Virgin Mary is crying with tears of blood, was sent to court for fraud. Gisella Cardia, who...
Italian woman Gisela Cardi will face trial for deceiving hundreds of believers by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary sheds tears of blood in order to entice them to make donations.
A woman who drew hundreds of pilgrims into a city near Rome, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary cried with tears of blood, was sent to court for fraud, reports The Guardian.
What began as a small cult of Marian devotion in Italy, became one of the most notorious alleged fraud cases in the country.
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