Authorities say they've solved a publishing thriller with the arrest of Filippo Bernardini, an Italian citizen, accused of quite a few literary heists and allegedly impersonating members within the publishing business for years.
In keeping with Damian Williams, U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of New York, police arrested Bernardini Wednesday after his arrival at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport. He was anticipated to look in federal courtroom on Thursday.
"Bernardini allegedly impersonated publishing business people as a way to have authors, together with a Pulitzer prize winner, ship him prepublication manuscripts for his personal profit," Williams mentioned within the assertion.
Bernardini, 29, faces federal legal expenses, together with wire fraud, which carries a penalty of as much as 20 years in jail, and aggravated identification theft.
In keeping with the indictment in opposition to Bernardini, filed in July however unsealed on Wednesday, the schemes occurred from August 2016 by July 2021.
This ongoing thriller continued to confuse publishing business members for years. In keeping with the indictment, Bernardini collected a whole bunch of unpublished works all through the scheme impersonating authors, editors, managers and publishers. Focused works embrace manuscripts written by Margaret Atwood, Ethan Hawke, Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr, Jennifer Egan, in addition to novice writers. Nevertheless, Bernardini by no means tried to promote any of those works, however appeared to carry on to them.
The indictment states Bernardini "has been concerned within the publishing business in London, United Kingdom, and he presently works as a Rights Coordinators for a significant, worldwide, U.S.-based publishing home." In keeping with the Related Press, a Linked In web page for Filippo B, an account believed to belong to Bernardini, states he has an "obsession for the written phrase" and lists him as a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster.
Moreover, Bernardini impersonated a New York Metropolis-based scouting firm to acquire details about upcoming books and obtained a whole bunch of unpublished manuscripts.
In keeping with the indictment, Bernardini "used fraudulent, look-alike, domains to impersonate people concerned within the publishing business to realize surreptitious entry to those supplies," and that through the years, he "impersonated, defrauded, and tried to defraud, a whole bunch of people."
In an announcement, a member from the publishing home mentioned it was "shocked and horrified to study at the moment of the allegations of fraud and identification theft by an worker of Simon & Schuster UK."
The writer mentioned Bernardini had been suspended pending extra data, including, "The safekeeping of our authors' mental property is of major significance to Simon & Schuster, and for all within the publishing business, and we're grateful to the FBI for investigating these incidents and bringing expenses in opposition to the alleged perpetrator."
The Related Press contributed to this report.
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