The arrest of a manuscript thief in New York solves a mystery that occupied the American literary circles
The US Federal Police (FBI) has arrested an employee of the publishing house "Simon & Schuster" on suspicion of stealing hundreds of manuscripts of the book before its publication, which solves a mystery that has occupied American literary circles for years, but the motives are still mysterious.
After being presented Thursday in court in New York, the day after his arrest at John Fitzgerald Kennedy International Airport, a 29-year-old Italian was convicted of electronic fraud and the use of a false identity with aggravating reasons for the penalty, crimes that carry a sentence of 22 years in prison.
A spokesman for the federal attorney general in Manhattan told AFP that the court imposed a $300,000 bond on the man as a "guarantee of his assets", and placed him "in home confinement" with a "curfew".
It is suspected that this employee received from Simon & Schuster House in London as a "rights coordinator", between 2016 and 2021, "hundreds of unpublished manuscripts", some of them by famous writers or their representatives, while giving them fake email addresses to officials in publishing houses or literary agents, According to the indictment published by the American judiciary.
- From "Millennium" to Atwood -
The suspect was expert in his fraud, changing a single letter in an unnoticeable way in an email address and impersonating people known to the targets to facilitate their capture.
For years, the publishing world has been awash with impersonation attempts, some unsuccessful and others successful, mysteriously because the thefts were not followed by a ransom demand or the diversion of works for illegal publication.
In August 2021, New York Magazine recounted how, in 2017, the publishers of the world-famous Swedish detective series Millenium were asked in 2017 to someone who impersonated a colleague in Italy to send him a secure link providing access to a manuscript in translation before it was released.
And in 2019, the literary agent of Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood revealed that frauds of this kind targeted the expected sequel to "The Handmaids Tale" titled "The Testaments".
Bernardini was accused of registering "160 fraudulent domains" on the Internet, and even a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer sent him his "manuscript for publication" believing he was the publisher of his work, according to the indictment.
These fraudulent attempts have also targeted well-known writers such as Sally Rooney, Ian McEwan or actor Ethan Hawke, according to the New York Times.
- What motives?
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Until now, Filippo Bernardini's motives for pleading his innocence during his first appearance are still vague.
Although the indictment shows that he was carefully concealing the manuscripts he seized in one electronic box, the suspect did not explain what he was doing with these actions and whether he made financial profits thanks to them.
The indictment also did not address the presence of accomplices in the fraudulent operations.
Not much information was released about the suspect.
According to screenshots from a LinkedIn account that is no longer online, he is known as Filippo B.
He describes himself as a "rights coordinator" at Simon & Schuster and holds a degree in Chinese from the Catholic University of Milan and a degree in publishing from UCL University in London, a path he attributes to a "passion for written texts and languages".
The case is an embarrassment to the New York-based American publishing house, which includes among its most famous writers Stephen King.
The company announced that it had "frozen" the employee's responsibilities "pending more information on the case", expressing "shock and astonishment" about the suspect's crimes.
"Protecting the intellectual property of our writers is of paramount importance to Simon & Schuster and the entire publishing industry," the company said.
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