As the evi­dence accu­mu­lates on the Follieri/Galante church-for-beach-house devel­op­er scan­dal, it’s become some­thing of a par­lor game around the kitchen table to spec­u­late on who will play all the char­ac­ters in the upcom­ing mini-series. It’s only a mat­ter of time real­ly. We’ve got a glam Euro­trash huck­ster, a Hol­ly­wood actress, the Sopranos-like mob vice pres­i­dent, Bill Clin­ton shady deal­ings with his all-but-pedophile drink­ing bud­dies – and of course the Dio­cese of Cam­den’s Bish­op Galante and at least one dioce­san priest with a fond­ness for play­ing dress-up. It will only become more truth-is-stranger-than-fiction when a few more details work their way from open secret to FBI doc­u­men­ta­tion and NY Post headlines. 

So while it’s not a sur­prise, there is a cer­tain sat­is­fac­tion in the lat­est media rumor that “Law & Order” is plan­ning one of their clas­sic “ripped from the head­lines” drama­ti­za­tion of the scandal:

Raf­fael­lo’s arrest was and still is the buzz in New York City’s social circles.…He was the ulti­mate con man; hand­some, rich, smooth and with a celebri­ty girl­friend to make him seem legit. I’m sure this will be the highest-rated Law & Order episode next season.

There’s enough angles to this sto­ry to fill an entire sea­son of tele­vi­sion so we don’t know how promi­nent the Bish­op’s part will be. But L&O cre­ator Dick Wolf grew up an altar boy at St. Patrick­’s cathe­dral in New York and the L&O cos­tume depart­ment has more cler­i­cal out­fits that Raf­fael­lo Fol­lier­i’s clos­et. Wolf rarely miss­es the chance to throw a priest into the script. Whole sea­sons of the show were devot­ed to ripped-from-the-headlines pieces on the priest/bishop sex abuse scan­dal in the ear­ly 2000s and I’m sure a follow-up look at the web of finan­cial fraud fueled (or at least jus­ti­fied) by the set­tle­ment pay­outs would be a big rat­ings hit.

I just wish Lennie Briscoe was still around to make the col­lar. BOMP BOMP.