Olivia Told Me to Write
The original post I wrote and published in January 2018 has now been archived.
For years I blamed myself for the abuse my ex boyfriend did to other women after I left him in 2014. I thought it was my fault they were hurt because I never spoke out about it. I no longer believe that to be true. Pietro Filipponi is the only one at fault for his actions and he has to live with that – but I don’t.
I’m grateful for all the men and women who has reached out in response to my original post, trusting me with their emotional and physical abusive experiences with Filipponi. But it has been over 12 years since I originally met him and I would like to leave him in the past.
If you stumble across this page because someone sent it to you or you found it on Reddit – I’m sorry all the gruesome details are no longer online. However, his reputation speaks for himself. I hope his victims find peace.
-1/3/2023
Dear Zoe,
My heart absolutely broke as I read of your chronic abuse and pain at the hands of Pietro Filipponi. Your story is prominent in the web search so hopefully, it will continue to be a forum for your healing as you share with others.
Perhaps a young woman, or any vulnerable, kind, trusting person in his path…might google “Pietro Filipponi” at the early “Red Flag” stage and find all this. I would like to think so, which is why I am chiming in with a sad, weird experience. It was only money, so I am not in the category of others that I’ve read about here so victimized by Pietro Filipponi.
My Story: I own and run a small vintage Hotel in San Diego 3 blocks from Comic Con. Pietro Filipponi stayed with us for 3 years during Comic Con, from 2013 to 2016. I guess he was sick enough to plan his “Con game” in stages over 3 years. We are a true Mom and Pop but not simple folks. I treat our guests as family. Oh Boy..I must have been live bait for Pietro! All the Red Flags were there…even from his first visit. He was so proud of his “columns”, his star power and always presented himself as too busy to interact. I can’t remember if I began to follow his tweets the first year or the second…but they didn’t fit the experience. He seemed to lie constantly in his posts. He was staying in our little Victorian, not the 5-star suite he wrote about. He chain smoked on our tiny modest balcony…he didn’t hang with the mega stars he wrote about. He didn’t even mix well with others in the Hotel. After he left Year 1, he had rearranged all the furniture in the room, including the bed. Odd behavior, I thought, but maybe he was just ADHD or had some type of disorder.
The last night of his stay he said he had lost his wallet. I gave him $100 cash for travel and honestly, I think he paid me back somehow or I wouldn’t have been quite such a putz the next year.
Year #2: He said he would be renting the ENTIRE hotel for his “staff”. We have 20 rooms and an apartment suite. That did not come to fruition…only Pietro came. That was fine, he told me enough in advance that the plan had fallen through, but I was supposed to get the big idea: Pietro was a “Big Shot”. Yes, I think he was setting the hook even then.
The 3rd year (2016) was his break-out performance. He asked for 8 rooms. I explained I wasn’t hosting for Comic Con that year as I had a critically ill Mother. He worked me and cast his net and I swam right in. I got sitters for my Mom and went back to work. I ramped up housekeeping, bought supplies and gifts for the rooms, decorated…all the things I enjoyed doing for Comic Con. I called all my regulars to come back. Pietro’s 8 rooms shrank to 5, then back to more, and then, “any he could take off my hands” and so on. I realize now, of course, that he was SELLING them online. Yep! I finally invoiced him for 5 rooms, which is what we settled on the NIGHT BEFORE Comic Con…all the while his Paypal just wasn’t working. Yeah, right. We had gone back and forth on PayPal for weeks…talk about Red Flag; I had never had a single PayPal issue ever.
He offered to bring a “Company Check” as he said he had to close his PayPal account due to all the issues. Because he had stayed for 2 previous years with us and because I feared a lobby full of his co-workers with no place to stay, I ignored my gut and offered to take the check when he arrived. He owed for 5 rooms for 5 nights of 2016 Comic Con.
So, yes, this true Comic CON pimped our rooms on Twitter. I was savvy enough to find his actual ads later! He kept saying the check was left in the my office. (I was there all day each day and there is a mail slot for after hours.) “Well, I’ll have to send you one when I get back to New York because it was a company check so that’s the only way.”
When he left and with no further communication, it took about a week to realize that we had been robbed. But it felt worse in some ways. The con part made me feel stupid and guilty. That’s how they work. They leave their victims feeling somehow to blame.
Funny thing though, after the scam broke, two of “his customers” tried to help us out. I had found enough information in their rooms after they checked out to contact them, as I suspected fraud early. Those guys then contacted PayPal and tried to reverse their payments made to Pietro to us. No go, but they tried. They were horrified to learn they had been scammed…we had all been scammed. So, yes, bottom line, Pietro Filipponi positioned himself as representing our Hotel and sold our property on the open Twitter market. Honestly it felt numbing.
My mind goes to Pietro every year at Comic Con so I decided to do a fresh google yesterday. It is how I found you, Zoe. I am happy to lend my odd little story. I feel that I am the least injured and I am delighted to be on your support team.
Please email me if you are ever in San Diego and I will treat you to the BEST restaurant in town and celebrate your survival and bravery! Stay strong and powerful. Big, big hugs too!
-Vicki E.
My daughter Eliza has been closely associated with this creep for the past 5 years. She forfeited everything- her home, her family, her career and her self worth to satisfy him. She refuses to accept the reality about him, despite all that he has done and what has been written here. She was a decent person before. Not sure that is true any more. Imagine how your blog reads to her mom. I am sickened by it all.
Would that be the same E. Frye in this post? https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/i5zi1i/men_and_women_of_reddit_who_caught_their/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I just read this, recommended by a girlfriend a work with that dated and has gone through the exact problems with this exact man and does not want to speak up. I want to let you know you have put peace in her heart and I have encouraged her to speak out. God bless.