'Dr. Death' season 2 is based on controversial surgeon Paolo Macchiarini. Here's what happened to him in real life.

• Season two of Peacock's crime drama anthology show "Dr. Death" is based on Paolo Macchiarini.
• The Netflix docuseries "Bad Surgeon" also tells the story of Macchiarini's various scams throughout the years.

At first, debonair surgeon Paolo Macchiarini — the subject of Netflix's recent docuseries "Bad Surgeon" — seemed too good to be true. Macchiarini said he had experience teaching at universities around the world and was proud of his lifesaving research involving stem cells and synthetic trachea implants.

It's no surprise, then, that producer Benita Alexander quickly fell for him. Alexander met Macchiarini after working with him on a two-hour special about his work for NBC called "Leap of Faith." Their romance led to trips around the world, and soon, plans were made for a lavish, star-studded wedding where Elton John would perform and Pope Francis would officiate.

But Alexander and Macchiarini's relationship quickly fell apart after she realized that Macchiarini had been lying about both his personal and professional life.

It appeared as though Macchiarini was a serial fabulist. In addition to his lies about his personal connections, his past marriage, and his teaching experiences, Macchiarini's research into trachea implants was called into question. In the end, the medical community found that Macchiarini's "breakthrough" artificial trachea procedures had been propped up by fraudulent research and had led to the deaths of several patients.

"Bad Surgeon" pulls back the curtain on Macchiarini's lies and follows the efforts of his former colleagues and patients to hold him accountable. And now, the Peacock crime drama anthology series "Dr. Death" is also telling a dramatized version of Macchiarini's story in its second season, which premiered December 21.

Here's where Macchiarini ended up in real life.

In 2022, Macchiarini received a suspended sentence in a Swedish court proceeding for 'causing bodily harm'

The bulk of Macchiarini's research involved cultivating a patient's own stem cells on a trachea "scaffold" — at first, one taken from deceased donors and stripped of donor cells, and later, plastic shells custom manufactured to Macchiarini's specifications — and then transplanting it into the patient. As the Guardian reported in 2017, Macchiarini's procedure was considered groundbreaking since it used the patient's cells to create the artificial trachea, thereby eliminating the risks (in theory) of the patient's body rejecting the transplant.

However, nearly every one of the patients known to have undergone Macchiarini's style of trachea transplant later died, including three at the Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden, where Macchiarini worked for several years.

In 2015, after working with Macchiarini for more than four years, the institute suspended his funding. The following year, after an explosive Vanity Fair article poked holes in his credentials and a Swedish television program raised questions about the safety of Macchiarini's plastic tracheas, the thoracic surgeon was fired from the institute.

The public criticism of his work prompted the Karolinska Institutet University Board, of which the institute is part, to open a scientific misconduct investigation into Macchiarini.

In March of 2016, Karolinska Institutet formally dismissed Macchiarini. The findings of their investigation led to a complete overhaul of the institute's ethics policy and the resignation of several high-level officials.

In 2020, a Swedish court charged Macchiarini with three counts of aggravated assault and causing bodily harm. A judge subsequently found that Macchiarini had caused the three deceased patients serious harm — but the surgeon was acquitted of assault because the judge wasn't convinced that Macchiarini purposefully set out to hurt his patients.

Throughout the ordeal, Macchiarini maintained his innocence. He was given a suspended sentence at the time.

Both the prosecution and Macchiarini appealed the decision, leading to a new sentence in 2023

A Swedish appeals court heard Macchiarini's case in April and May. The panel of five appeals judges found him guilty of gross assault against three of his patients.

Macchiarini was sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

The appeals judges found that Macchiarini acted with criminal intent. The judges argued that Macchiarini was well aware of the risks that the trachea transplants could pose to his patients, yet he decided to go through with the surgeries anyway. In the third case, the court found that the surgery "was done in a case of emergency but, despite this, was indefensible."

Three additional researchers at the Karolinska Institutet were subsequently found to have committed scientific misconduct by the National Board for the Investigation of Misconduct in Research in relation to Macchiarini's work.

Macchiarini, for his part, doubled down on his claims that he only meant to help his patients, and, at a press conference following his conviction, cast blame on his fellow medical professionals and supervisors at Karolinska.

"In the operating room we were 20, 25 people. What surprises me is, why I am here alone?" he said.

Macchiarini appealed the decision to Sweden's Supreme Court, and while the appeals process was ongoing, Macchiarini was not required to turn himself in for prison time.

However, in October, the Supreme Court announced that it would not hear the case, and the Court of Appeals judgment stood.

In the meantime, the Karolinska Institutet has requested that all scientific articles published by Macchiarini from the institute be retracted.