The Confessions of Anthony Raimondi launches with tales of murder - of the pope

The Confessions of Anthony Raimondi, from truth.media, Clockwork Films, and USG Audio, a division of Universal Studio Group (winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award for You Didn’t See Nothin).

“Anthony Raimondi’s many wild stories weave together into a Who’s Who of organized crime. He’s the Forrest Gump of the mafia touching so many pivotal historical moments and notorious and often dangerous people. But what surprised me the most was just who exactly Anthony ended up being. Someone you would never expect…” — Marc Smerling, Host of The Confessions of Anthony Raimondi

In 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead in bed 33 days after he was elected. The Vatican announced to the world that the Pope suffered a fatal heart attack, but many people believe The Pope was murdered by poison because he was planning to investigate financial corruption in the Vatican. Suspicion grew after the Vatican lied about who found the Pope’s body.

And another surprising discovery: the Vatican rushed to embalm the Pope without performing an autopsy.

Now, a dying Brooklyn gangster is ready to confess that he was a part of a conspiracy to kill the Pope. He was there and witnessed the murder firsthand… at least, that’s what he says.

His name is Anthony Raimondi. And over eight episodes, we’ll hear him confess to a lot of things. From killing a guy at 16 as part of a misspent youth, to his relationships with famous gangsters, to trading a long murder sentence to fight covert battles for the U.S. government in Vietnam. Anthony’s most outrageous claim ends in the dark halls of Vatican City and the Papal Chamber with the poisoning of John Paul I.

His story is stranger than fiction. But is it fiction? That’s what we’ll find out.

Executive Producers: Josh Bloch from USG Audio; Marc Smerling from truth.media; Naomi Harvey and Jamie Cohen from Clockwork Films.

About Marc Smerling

Marc Smerling is an Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated producer, writer, director, cinematographer and founder of truth.media, a television and podcast production company bringing unique visions and voices to investigative stories. Smerling laid the path for the popularity of true crime podcasts when he created Crimetown in 2016 with co-host Zac Stuart-Pontier. It landed atop many 2017 podcast top-ten lists, including The New York Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. For his collective contributions to the podcast industry, iHeartRadio named Smerling the “Podcast Innovator of the Year” in 2019.

In an exclusive partnership with Sony Music Entertainment in 2020, he and his team have begun creating a slate of investigative podcasts, including Morally Indefensible, a companion to Smerling’s nonfiction television series, A Wilderness Of Error, produced in partnership with Blumhouse Television for FX Networks. His podcast with Apple Originals, “Operation: Tradebom” garnered two LA Press Club Awards and his podcast “Firebug” is being produced as a TV series with Apple TV, starring Taron Egerton.