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New York Court Convicts Italian Man Of Stealing Unpublished Books
(CTN NEWS) – NEW YORK – An Italian Man was detained in New York for faking the identities of people associated with the publishing industry online to get unpublished novels and other book manuscripts.
The FBI detained Filippo Bernardini on Wednesday at JFK airport. Charges of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud were brought against the 29-year-old.
From 2016, according to legal records, he allegedly registered more than 160 phony internet sites. On Thursday, he will show himself in front of a federal court in Manhattan.
The riddle surrounding agents, editors, and Booker Prize judges falling for phishing scams from slightly altered official-looking email addresses.
Margaret Atwood previously confirmed there had been “concerted efforts to steal the manuscript” of her book The Testaments /LIAM SHARP / FOUR COMMUNICATIONS.
Seeking submissions of works by authors such as Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood may finally have an answer with Bernardini’s arrest.
Atwood acknowledged there had been “concerted attempts to steal the manuscript” of her book The Testaments before it was published in an interview with The Bookseller in 2019.
She stated that numerous phony emails were sent by individuals attempting to obtain anything, including simply three pages.
According to The Guardian and The New York Times, both novelist Sally Rooney and actor Ethan Hawke were similarly targeted.
The FBI alleges that Bernardini obtained unpublished and draught works by “impersonating, defrauding, and attempting to defraud, hundreds of individuals.” Even so, it’s still unclear why he might have done it.
The New York Times reported that neither manuscripts nor demands for ransom were discovered to have been leaked online.
Normal People author Sally Rooney was among the authors targeted/ GETTY IMAGE
‘SHOCKED AND TERRIFIED’
The publishing business where the Italian man worked, Simon & Schuster, is situated in London, but there is no indication that it is at fault, and it is not mentioned in the court documents.
A firm spokesman told the BBC that they had suspended Bernardini pending more information and that they were “shocked and disturbed” by the accusations.
“Simon & Schuster, and everyone in the publishing industry, are thankful to the FBI for investigating these occurrences and pressing charges against the accused culprit,”.
She continued. “Protecting our writers’ intellectual property is of paramount significance to us.
Bernardini “supposedly impersonated publishing industry individuals to get authors, including a Pulitzer prize winner, to send him prepublication manuscripts for his gain,” according to US attorney Damian Williams.
He said, “With the plot twist of Bernardini facing federal criminal charges for his misconduct, this real-life storyline now reads as a cautionary tale.”
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