An Italian man has been posing for years to steal more than a thousand manuscripts from authors like Margaret Atwood. He pleaded guilty in a New York court.
Filippo Bernardini worked in London for the American publisher Simon & Schuster. He used the knowledge he acquired in the publishing world to get his hands on unpublished manuscripts by known and unknown authors from August 2016 to January 2021.
The 30-year-old man used fake email addresses to pass himself off as publishers and literary agents. The theft only stopped when he was arrested at a New York airport in January of last year. Bernardini could be sentenced to 20 years in prison. The court will announce his sentence on April 5.
In addition to bestselling author Margaret Atwood, the hundreds of victims also include Dutch writer Hanna Bervoets and actor Ethan Hawke.
