Bernardini admits stealing more than 1,000 unpublished manuscripts

Filippo Bernardini has admitted to stealing more than 1,000 unpublished manuscripts. 

Bernardini, 30, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, federal prosecutors in New York announced in a statement. The Italian citizen worked in London for Simon & Schuster (S&S), and impersonated agents and publishers over email to obtain novels and other works from writers and their representatives.  

Prosecutors said beginning in “at least 2016” Bernardini created fake email accounts by registering more than 160 internet domains that were crafted to be “confusingly similar to the real entities that they were impersonating, including only minor typographical errors that would be difficult for the average recipient to identify during a cursory review”. He was arrested by the FBI in January 2022. 

His motive has never been clear. Manuscripts were not found to have been leaked on the internet, nor were any ransom demands made. 

S&S was not accused of any wrongdoing in the indictment and suspended Bernardini’s employment. At the time, the publisher said it was “shocked and horrified” by the allegations. 

In a statement on Friday (6th January) the publisher said: "We are grateful to the FBI and Department of Justice for its defence and support of the intellectual property rights of authors throughout the world.” 

Bernardini initially pleaded not guilty to aggravated identity theft and wire fraud and was released on bail. He was originally due in court in July 2022 but the sitting was postponed by US district court judge Colleen McMahon to consider a Deferred Prosecution Request.

US attorney Damian Williams said on Friday: “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. Through impersonation and phishing schemes, Bernardini was able to obtain more than 1,000 manuscripts fraudulently. I commend the career prosecutors of this office as well as our law enforcement partners for writing the final chapter to Bernardini’s manuscript theft scheme.”

The Times reported Bernardini "would chase major works" by the likes of Stieg Larsson, Ethan Hawke and Sally Rooney and impersonated agents, including Sam Edenborough, who worked at the translation rights agency ILA, and Jane Southern, a literary scout. “He fooled a couple of people as me,” Edenborough told the Times. “He bought a similar domain name, but swapped the ‘g’ in the word agency in my email for a ‘q’ — which you can’t spot easily as addresses are normally underlined. What was creepy was that he got hold of some of my emails — his had the same email signature, and used the same fonts.”

At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2018, Southern recalled a fellow scout who she didn’t know coming up to hug her as though they were friends, but this woman’s interactions had all been with Bernardini.

“Fake me had asked her to share a manuscript,” she said. “I felt my identity was being stolen and that it was a violation. I kept waiting for some consequence — I thought he might ask for money.” He never did. 

Bernardini will be sentenced in Manhattan federal court on 5th April. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. As part of his guilty plea, Bernardini agreed to pay restitution of $88,000 (£72,700).