ABC to Present New Series “The Con” Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg Starting October 14

Whoopi Goldberg is coming to primetime television to narrate a new ABC News series, The Con. Each week the series will introduce the audience to victims and perpetrators of too good to be true offers and the destruction left in the wake of these scams.

What’s Happening: 

  • ABC News will debut the new primetime series “The Con,” narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, on Wednesday, October 14.
  • The series explores the troubling tales of people taken in by claims and promises that proved too good to be true, from identity fraud and misleading romance to the high-profile college admission scandal and Fyre Festival.
  • It will reveal how the victims were fooled and the cost of their false trust – emotional and financial.
  • The Con will feature interviews with the key people caught up in the cons, including victims and eyewitnesses, and, in some cases, law enforcement and the perpetrators themselves.
  • The series will lift the curtain on the people behind some of the most outrageous cons ever.
  • Each week The Con will document a different con and its victims. Future episodes feature the stories of:
    • Johnathan Walton and con artist Marianne Smyth, who claimed to be an Irish heiress whose family was trying to swindle her out of her massive inheritance
    • Anthony Gignac of Michigan, who created a false identity to deceive people into thinking he was a member of the Saudi royal family
    • The story of three women who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to psychic frauds who preyed on their vulnerability and dependency.  
  • The Con kicks off Wednesday, October 14 (10:02 – 11:00 pm ET) on ABC.

About the Premiere Episode:

  • In the series premiere Goldberg introduces viewers to Benita Alexander, an award-winning documentary television producer and single mother, and Paolo Macchiarini, an internationally-renowned surgeon.
  • Alexander meets Macchiarini while producing a documentary on his groundbreaking surgical techniques using stem cells in synthetic trachea transplants. Despite crossing professional lines, Alexander finds herself wooed by Macchiarini’s charm, intellect and good looks, and the pair quickly falls in love.
  • After traveling the world together, the couple gets engaged and, according to Alexander, Macchiarini tells her he wants to take over planning the wedding. It quickly becomes a grand, fairytale affair with an impressive guest list, including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Elton John. He says they’ll even be married by the Pope.
  • However, weeks before their Italian wedding, Alexander realizes things aren’t as perfect as they seem and uses her investigative producer skills to uncover the truth behind Macchiarini and the planned wedding.

Creative Team:

  • David Sloan is Senior Executive Producer
  • Carrie Cook and Colleen Halpin serve as Executive Producers for ABC News
  • Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman are Executive Producers for IPC, along with Executive Producer and Director Star Price
  • The premiere episode of The Con is produced by ABC News.
  • Other episodes in the series are produced by Industrial Media’s The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC) for ABC News