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An Italian bookworm who used his place within the business to swipe lots of of unpublished manuscripts claimed in courtroom papers Friday that he pulled off the ruse as a result of he needed to learn books earlier than they hit shops.
E-book manuscript thief Filippo Bernardini, 30, pleaded responsible in January to at least one depend of wire fraud for stealing the manuscripts, together with titles written by Margaret Atwood, Ethan Hawke and Ian McEwan, from 2016 by means of 2022.
He pulled off the thefts by barely altering e mail addresses of business professionals, and would then trick folks with entry to the manuscript he sought into giving him a sophisticated copy, Manhattan federal prosecutors charged.
“Why did he do it? Why would somebody go to such lengths to acquire so many unpublished manuscripts after which do nothing with them? Not promote them. Not share them. Not search to complement himself financially in any method with them?” Bernardini’s lawyer, Jennifer Brown, wrote in a sentencing submission filed Friday.
“He needed to learn books earlier than they had been printed,” she added.
Within the prolonged submission, Brown wrote Bernardini grew up as a lonely, bullied homosexual youngster in a conservative part of Italy who discovered consolation by burying himself in books.
His love of literature led him to varsity in Milan and later to graduate faculty in London, the place he landed internships at a publishing home and a literary company.
He was employed by Simon and Schuster in 2019, the place he stayed till the FBI arrested him for his yearslong fraud at JFK Airport in January 2022.
In his personal letter to Choose Colleen McMahon, Bernardini apologized for his crime, however claimed it was all completed so he may dive into the tales earlier than they had been out there to most of the people.
“I by no means needed to and I by no means leaked these manuscripts. I needed to maintain them intently to my chest and be one of many fewest to cherish them earlier than anybody else, earlier than they ended up in bookshops,” he wrote.
“There have been occasions the place I learn the manuscripts and I felt a particular and distinctive reference to the writer, nearly like I used to be the editor of that e-book,” he added.
Bernardini is ready to be sentenced in April and will withstand 21 months in jail. His attorneys have requested the choose to condemn him to time served.
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