E book thief in plot that duped well-known authors avoids jail

NEW YORK — It was the stuff of novels: For years, a con artist plagued the publishing trade, impersonating editors and brokers to tug off lots of of literary heists. However the manuscripts obtained from high-profile authors had been by no means resold or leaked, rendering the thefts all of the extra perplexing.

The Thursday sentencing of Filippo Bernardini in Manhattan federal court docket introduced the saga to an finish and, with it, lastly some solutions. After pleading responsible to 1 depend of wire fraud in January, Bernardini was sentenced to time served, avoiding jail on a felony cost that carried as much as 20 years in jail. Prosecutors had requested for a sentence of at the least a yr.

Bernardini, now 30, impersonated lots of of individuals over the course of the scheme that started round August 2016 and obtained greater than a thousand manuscripts, together with from high-profile authors like Margaret Atwood and Ethan Hawke, authorities have mentioned.

In an emotional, four-page letter to Decide Colleen McMahon submitted earlier this month, Bernardini apologized for what he characterised as his “egregious, silly and flawed” actions. He additionally supplied perception into his motivations, which had lengthy stymied victims and observers alike even after his plea.

He described a deep love of books that stemmed from childhood and led him to pursue a publishing profession in London. Whereas he obtained an internship at a literary company there, he wrote, he had hassle securing a full-time job within the trade afterward.

“Whereas employed, I noticed manuscripts being shared between editors, brokers, and literary scouts and even with people exterior the trade. So, I questioned: why can I not additionally get to learn these manuscripts?” he recounted.

He spoofed an e-mail deal with of somebody he knew and mimicked his former colleagues’ tone to ask for a manuscript that had but to be printed. The success of that deception turned his quest for ill-gotten books into “an obsession, a compulsive behaviour.”

“I had a burning need to really feel like I used to be nonetheless one in all these publishing professionals and browse these new books,” he wrote.

“Each time an writer despatched me the manuscript I’d really feel like I used to be nonetheless a part of the trade. On the time, I didn’t take into consideration the hurt I used to be inflicting,” he added. “I by no means wished to and I by no means leaked these manuscripts. I wished 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.”

As a part of a bid to keep away from jail, Bernardini’s legal professionals additionally submitted greater than a dozen letters to the choose from his family and friends. In a novelistic twist of kinds, amongst them was a letter from a sufferer — author Jesse Ball, the writer of “Samedi the Deafness,” “Curfew” and “The Divers’ Recreation.”

Bernardini impersonated Ball’s editor to persuade the author to ship a number of unpublished manuscripts, Ball mentioned in his letter pushing for leniency. Decrying the state of the trade as “increasingly more company and cookiecutter” and referring to the crime as a “caper” and a “trivial factor, frivolous factor,” Ball argued that “we should be grateful when one thing human enters the image: when the publishing trade for as soon as turns into one thing value writing about.”

“For as soon as an individual cared deeply about one thing—what matter that he was an intruder? You can’t think about the soul crushing boredom of run-of-the-mill publishing correspondence,” Ball wrote, including that he suffered no hurt from the thefts apart from some confusion. “I’m grateful that there’s nonetheless room on the earth for one thing facetious to happen every now and then.”

In weighing arguments from the prosecution and protection, McMahon pushed again on the concept that the crime was victimless, with New York journal’s Vulture — the publication that introduced the thriller to public consideration with a 2021 story referred to as “The Backbone Collector” — reporting that “she was particularly moved by a letter from a literary scout” who had been accused of Bernardini’s crimes. Vulture additionally reported that McMahon expressed sympathy for Bernardini in mild of a brand new autism analysis, however mentioned it did not excuse the threats he made in some correspondence. However she concluded a jail sentence would not assist the victims.

Bernardini — an Italian citizen and British resident who was arrested at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport in January 2022 — can be deported from the U.S. Court docket paperwork present he requested to be deported to the UK, the place he lives along with his accomplice and canine, with Italy because the designated different.

As a part of his responsible plea, Bernardini agreed to pay $88,000 in restitution, which court docket paperwork present will go to Penguin Random Home.

“The merciless irony is that each time I open a guide,” Bernardini wrote of his one-time ardour, “it jogs my memory of my wrongdoings and what they led me to.”