"Man pleads guilty to stealing more than 1,000 manuscripts"

[Hopscotch]

From The Guardian  7Jan2022:

“Filippo Bernardini impersonated agents and publishers to obtain works from writers including Atwood, McEwan and Rooney…Beginning in August 2016, and continuing up to his arrest, the Italian impersonated hundreds of people in the world of publishing by sending emails from fake accounts. The addresses resembled the domain names of legitimate publishers but with some letters changed. Prosecutors say he registered more than 160 fraudulent domains….Bernardini’s motive has never been clear.  Alleged victims were baffled by the fact the thefts were never followed by demands for money, nor did the works ever seem to appear online or on the dark web.  Screenshots from Bernardini’s LinkedIn profile shortly after his arrest described…his ‘obsession for the written word and languages’....”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/07/filippo-bernardini-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-more-than-1000-unpublished-manuscripts

[Luke Everhart]

From the article: "Screenshots from Bernardini’s LinkedIn profile shortly after his arrest described him as a “rights coordinator” at Simon & Schuster." Guess he had a rather different take on that position...