Ex-Fiancée of Surgeon in Peacock’s “Dr. Death: Cutthroat Conman ”Grateful 'Megalomaniac' Is Exposed (Exclusive)

Dr. Paolo Macchiarini duped women as well as the international medical community, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts — and dead patients

The surgeries seemed so promising.

In 2011, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini exploded onto the international medical scene when he invented the artificial windpipe and performed the world’s first synthetic trachea transplant.

The cutting-edge surgery, the so-called "super surgeon" claimed, would one day obviate the need for organ transplants.

But that day never came.

The charismatic, demonstrative, Swiss-born doctor who performed his groundbreaking experimental transplant surgeries with great fanfare kept uncharacteristically quiet about the fact that some of his patients were dying slow, painful deaths — sometimes suffocating when the plastic windpipes failed to work.

The twisted tale of how Macchiarini came to perform the deadly surgeries and continued to do so despite evidence of their danger is the focus of the Peacock Original true crime documentary, Dr. Death: Cutthroat Conman which became available to stream today.

(Peacock is giving audiences another take on the story with the Dec. 21 premiere of its scripted series, Dr. Death Season 2, starring Edgar Ramirez as Machiarini and Mandy Moore as Benita Alexander, his ex-fiancée, who he wooed through a web of elaborate lies.)

The 90-minute documentary details how the once high-flying surgeon was “exposed as an international con man whose web of lies extends decades, ensnared many including those in his personal life and left a trail of devastated patients grappling with a nightmare," according to a Peacock statement.

Related: TV Producer Scammed By 'Bad Surgeon' Paolo Macchiarini Says 'Love Bombing' Should Have Been 'Red Flag' (Exclusive)

Dr. Death: Cutthroat Conman details how Macchiarini was able to perform the doomed surgeries at hospitals around the world, including Sweden’s renowned Karolinska Institute, which hands out the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

It also depicts how he conned women he romanced, including Alexander, a former NBC News producer who was working on a story about him when she met him in 2013.

Macchiarini swept Alexander off her feet, taking her on luxurious trips to romantic locales such as Venice, Italy, and lavishing her with glittery gifts and dinners at the world’s finest restaurants.

The fairytale life she envisioned with the magnetic surgeon vanished into the ether in 2015 when she learned that her fiancé had never gotten divorced, as he had told her. (He also had a child with the mother of one of his late patients.) The elaborate wedding he said he was planning at an Italian castle — which he said would be attended by presidents and heads of state and officiated by the Pope — was non-existent.

His world was crashing down, too, when whistleblowers alerted people to the fact that Macchiarini’s patients kept dying.

He has since been convicted of harming three of his patients.

In June, Sweden’s Svea Court of Appeal found him guilty of gross assault against three of his patients and sentenced him to two-and-a-half years in prison. It is unclear whether or not he has reported to prison yet.

Related: Mandy Moore Reflects on Filming Dr. Death 6 Weeks After Giving Birth: 'I Sort of Rolled with It' (Exclusive)

For her part, Alexander tells PEOPLE she has not seen the documentary or the scripted series, had no involvement in their production, and hopes she is portrayed accurately.

At the same time, she says, “This is an important story and Paolo Macchiarini’s horrific, deadly crimes need to continue to be exposed."

“There are vital lessons and warnings for everyone here about how cunning, pathological liars operate, which is why I will continue my advocacy work to denounce victim shaming and to help other women spot the warning signs and recover from this kind of extreme betrayal," she says.

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Alexander ended her engagement with Macchiarini in 2015. She left NBC News and is now executive producer and showrunner of the true crime series, Crimes Gone Viral, which airs on Investigation Discovery.

She also found love again. “I am now in a very serious relationship with a lovely man. He is very supportive and patient with me.”

She is relieved Macchiarini is no longer in her life. “He's a narcissistic, pathological liar, megalomaniac, and many other things,” she says.

The documentary Dr. Death: Cutthroat Conman and the scripted series, Dr. Death Season 2, are streaming on Peacock.

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