An Italian man has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and admitted to stealing more than 1,000 literary manuscripts from multiple renowned authors, federal prosecutors in New York announced Friday.
Filippo Bernardini, who worked for Simon & Schuster in London, initially pleaded “not guilty” after his arrest last year, but changed his plea Friday and agreed to pay $88,000 in restitution. Prosecutors claimed Bernardini impersonated agents and publishers via email to obtain novels and other works from writers such as Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, and Sally Rooney.
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“Filippo Bernardini used his insider knowledge of the publishing industry to create a scheme that stole precious works from authors and menaced the publishing industry,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, according to the Guardian.
The scam was known in literary circles for several years before it became known to the public, following Bernardini’s arrest by the FBI in New York last year. The scam began in 2016 and continued until his arrest. Bernardini impersonated hundreds of people in the world of publishing by sending emails from fake email addresses. Prosecutors believe Bernardini had created more than 160 fraudulent email addresses that resemble the real emails, with just a letter or two changed.
The Swedish editors of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium series” claimed they had been approached by a supposed colleague in Italy, who had requested an advance copy of the series so it could be translated into Italian before its release, New York Magazine reported in 2021. Atwood’s agent revealed Atwood was a victim of the thief in 2019, with her manuscript of “The Testaments” as the intended target. Rooney, who wrote “Normal People,” McEwan, who wrote “Atonement,” and actor Ethan Hawke were also alleged victims.
Bernardini’s employer Simon & Schuster, which has not been accused of wrongdoing, said it was shocked to hear of the allegations. Bernardini was a “Rights Coordinator” for the publishing company prior to his arrest.
“Protection of authors’ intellectual property is of the highest priority for Simon & Schuster,” the publisher said in a statement obtained by the Guardian on Friday. “We are grateful to the FBI and Department of Justice for its defense and support of the intellectual property rights of authors throughout the world.”
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Prosecutors have not revealed a motive for Bernardini’s thefts, but no monetary demands were requested by Bernardini, and the manuscripts were never leaked online or to the press. Bernardini will be sentenced at the Manhattan federal court on April 5, and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.
