Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida has pressed charges against her former companion, Spanish businessman Javier Rigau y Rafols, alleging that he staged a fake wedding to her using a look-alike to gain access to her inheritance.
Italian news agency ANSA reported Lollobrigida saying: “I may have been conned by Javier, a vile person who married me by proxy in Spain without my knowledge and without my consent, in order to inherit my estate after my death.”
The screen siren told authorities in Rome that Rigau had married her by proxy in Barcelona, Spain by obtaining legal documents from her. He employed a look-alike, “a certain Teresa”, to stand in for the actress.
The star alleges that Rigau has performed other scams in the past, which she found out about on the internet. ‘VanityFair.it’ reports that the actress said: “I actually had a power of attorney granted to Javier in 2010, through my signature, for a [legal] case that he was facing in Spain and that was certainly not a wedding with him.”
Lollobrigida and Rigau met at a party in Monte Carlo, Monaco. They announced their engagement in October 2006 when she was aged 79 and he was 45. The idea that the actress might marry a younger man sent the Italian press into a frenzy. The couple called off a proposed wedding two months later blaming media pressures.
