Filmmaker who killed man in Miami now gets to make pizzas in Italy

MIAMI — An Italian filmmaker who gunned down an Australian hotelier on Miami’s Virginia Key in the '90s can now leave prison to make pizzas and windsurf in Italy, thanks to the Italian judicial system and the U.S. push to return him to his native country to serve out his life sentence.

The Italian courts recently granted work release to Enrico “Chico” Forti, 66, who was convicted in 2000 of killing Anthony “Dale” Pike, 42, over a business deal and leaving his bullet-riddled body face down in a ravine off Virginia Key.

Under the work release, Forti will spend his days in Italy learning how to make pizza, helping the elderly and teaching windsurfing to disabled children, according to Italian media reports.

Forti, who owned two condos in the swanky Watson Island complex in Aventura, essentially will return to his Verona prison cell only to sleep.

In 2024, U.S. and Italian officials agreed to have Forti, who once owned the Miami Beach houseboat where Gianni Versace’s murderer had taken refuge, transferred from Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade to Italy to serve the remainder of his life-without-parole sentence. The transfer came after years of legal battles and was pushed by both former President Joe Biden and the first administration of President Donald Trump.

Forti claimed he was innocent, despite U.S. courts rejecting his appeals. The filmmaker’s claim of innocence became a cause célèbre in Italy, leading to diplomatic pressure to transfer him, despite fierce objections by the Miami-Dade state prosecutors who convicted him.

“Due to the strength of the evidence against Forti, 12 jurors rejected his many self-serving fabrications intended to cast suspicion upon anyone but himself for Dale Pike’s murder,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement to the Herald at the time, adding she was “disappointed with the administration’s decision” to send Forti back to Italy.

In spite of Fernandez Rundle’s objections, a Miami federal magistrate judge, backed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Italian government, authorized Forti’s transfer in 2024. Gov. Ron DeSantis approved the transfer “following the Italian government’s assurance that Mr. Forti will serve the entire remainder of his Florida prison sentence in Italy.”

Pike’s family and the Australian government also accepted the transfer, according to court records. Such transfers are uncommon but allowed under treaties between the U.S. and most European countries.

Neither DeSantis’ office nor the office of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to the Herald’s request for comment about Forti’s work release.

Forti’s work release came about due to differences between Italian and U.S. laws, according to the Herald’s review of court records. While Italy can’t change Forti’s life sentence, it can apply Italian law to it.

In Italy, a sentence for murder ranges from 24 to 30 years, making it unlikely that Forti will serve the rest of his days in prison, as he would have in Florida. Forti has already served 25 years in prison — 24 in Florida and a little over a year in Italy.

Since his return to Italy in 2024, Forti has been trying to get out of prison, according to Italian news reports. Months ago, an Italian court denied Forti conditional release, but previously granted him permission to visit his elderly mother, which he cited as a key reason for his transfer in the first place.

Miami, Ibiza and a murder

The murder of Pike, who was killed on the third birthday of his son, was linked to a dispute over the ownership of a resort on the Spanish island of Ibiza, known for its DJ-fueled nightclubs, party scene and beautiful beaches.

Pike flew to Miami in February 1998, after he intercepted a fax where his wealthy father, suffering from dementia, appeared to have signed his exclusive Ibiza resort over to Forti, according to the Herald’s archives. Pike was determined to undo the deal.

Forti, a former windsurfing champion and Italian filmmaker and TV producer, offered to pick Pike up at Miami International Airport. Pike was later found shot to death, naked and face down in a ravine in a windsurfing area known as Sewer Beach on Virginia Key.

During the trial, prosecutors showed jurors a sample of sand found in Forti’s Land Rover — sand unique to that strip of Virginia Key. Defense attorneys, however, claimed Forti was framed by his neighbor, who had an alibi and was never charged. They pointed out that there were no witnesses to the murder, and no forensic evidence, like fingerprints or DNA, tied Forti to the killing.

But a Miami jury rejected Forti’s claims, finding him guilty of first-degree murder on June 16, 2000.

Pike’s father Tony Pike, who died in 2019, told the Herald at the time of the trial that Pike’s son frequently asked him about his father’s killer. “He tells me, ‘I hope they kill him.’ I tell him he can’t talk like that, that he has to learn to forgive people,” Pike’s father said. “But I won’t forgive. Never. Not as long as I breathe.”

Versace killer connection

Pike’s murder wasn’t the only time Forti was linked to a high-profile crime in South Florida. Forti also owned the houseboat where Gianni Versace’s killer took cover.

When Andrew Cunanan was found dead aboard a Miami Beach houseboat in 1997, Forti presented papers showing he was the boat’s owner. Forti made thousands renting the boat to tabloid TV shows eager to show the final hiding place of Cunanan, who shot and killed the fashion icon on the steps of his Ocean Drive mansion in Miami Beach in July 1997.

Forti’s own movie was never filmed there: The boat sank just before Pike’s murder.

_____

(Miami Herald staff reporter Jay Weaver contributed to this report.)

_____