A 30-year-old Italian man has admitted his guilt in the theft of over a thousand unpublished literary manuscripts.
Filippo Bernardini, who worked in London for prominent publishing company Simon & Schuster, scammed writers out of their works by impersonating publishers and agents, using fake email accounts whose domain names resembled those of legitimate enterprises.
Writers targeted as part of Bernardini’s scam include Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and Sally Rooney, according to media reports.
"Filippo Bernardini used his insider knowledge of the publishing industry to create a scheme that stole precious works from authors and menaced the publishing industry," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said.
Arrested in January 2022 in New York by FBI agents, Bernardini stood trial, initially pleading not guilty.
On Friday, however, he changed his plea to guilty on one count of wire fraud and agreed to pay $88,000 in restitution as part of his plea. Sentencing is expected to take place on April 5.
Bernardini’s motives remain unclear at this point, as the works he stole never emerged online (even on the dark web) and the scammed authors never received any ransom demands.