An heir to the Fiat automobile fortune was arrested with a male escort in New York this past weekend for allegedly faking his own kidnapping, NYPD officials tell The Daily Beast.
Lapo Elkann, 39, the youngest grandson of Fiat’s legendary chief Gianni Agnelli, was given a desk appearance ticket early Sunday morning for filing a false police report claiming he was the victim of “unlawful imprisonment.”
Elkann was released from police custody but ordered by the ticket to appear before a criminal court for arraignment.
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The fashion maven who likes to flash his jetsetting lifestyle on his Instagram page flew into the city on Thursday and soon connected online with a 29-year-old male escort, according to a police source.
The two soon holed themselves up inside a Manhattan public housing project, according to the source, where the two men allegedly started consuming alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine.
The source added that the pair partied for over two days before cash ran out.
That’s when Elkann, allegedly on his own, concocted the kidnapping plot: he apparently warned his relatives that a woman was holding him against his will and that he “would be hurt” unless his family paid a $10,000 ransom, according to the source.
Elkann’s family informed the NYPD about the ransom, according to the source, and that is when investigators from the 13th Precinct helped lure both Elkann and his alleged male escort pal to a location to pick up the cash.
Cops pounced once the two men arrived. Elkann was charged with filing a false police report, but was not taken into custody and instead given a desk appearance ticket, authorities said. In regards to his male companion, cops said that his arrest was voided and sealed.
The latest alleged indiscretion in Manhattan wouldn’t be the first time Elkann found himself doped up and in the company of a prostitute. In 2005 shortly after the passing of his legendary grandfather, Elkann came close to dying from a cocaine overdose in the red-light district of Turin, Italy.
“I’ve been an idiot,” he told Vanity Fair at the time. A decade later he told the magazine’s reporter “I try to think about the constructive path.”
