PVLF 2025

Filippo Bernadini: A Suspect in Manuscript to Enter a Guilty Plea

Bernardini, an Italian national who worked as a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster UK, demonstrated insider knowledge of the business through his phishing attempts
on Jan 04, 2023

The FBI detained Filippo Bernardini last year. On Friday, he's anticipated to enter his plea, bringing an industry-enthralling, multi-year drama to a close.

For years, someone tried to steal unpublished book manuscripts from prominent authors like Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, and Ethan Hawke as well as from rookie novelists and writers of more minor works by posing as authors, agents, editors, and publishers.

A conclusion to the long-running program is now in sight. A Tuesday email from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York informed victims that Filippo Bernardini was anticipated to enter a guilty plea to wire fraud before a magistrate court judge in Manhattan on Friday.

Bernardini was detained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the beginning of last year after it was discovered that he had "impersonated, defrauded, and attempted to defraud, hundreds of individuals" over five or more years, giving him access to thousands of unpublished manuscripts.

On Tuesday, a representative of the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment. An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Bernardini's attorney.

Bernardini, an Italian national who worked as a rights coordinator for Simon & Schuster UK, demonstrated insider knowledge of the business through his phishing attempts. He used shorthand, such as substituting "ms" for "manuscripts," and had a thorough knowledge of how editors, publishers, agents, and translators function.

He would make minor adjustments to email addresses to give the impression that they were from publishing professionals, such as changing the "m" to an "rn" so that an email purporting to be from penguinrandomhouse.com read penguinrandornhouse.com. Bernardini established more than 160 phony internet domains impersonating publishers and businesses, according to the indictment that was made public after he was detained. According to the indictment, his phishing scam began at least in August 2016 and ran until the summer of 2021.

According to Catherine Eccles, owner of a literary scouting agency in London, "they know who our customers are, they know how we connect with our clients, where sub-agents fit in and where principal agents fit in." They're excellent, I must say.

Bernardini occasionally gave the impression that he picked his targets based on news of deals published in trade magazines like Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Weekly.

James Hannaham got an email that purported to be from his editor, Ben George, asking for the most recent manuscript after a brief article about his book sale to Little, Brown appeared in Publishers Marketplace.

Bernardini occasionally made extensive attempts to access the company's databases. Along with authors, Bernardini also targeted literary agents and other publishing experts. He set up fake login sites to target a literary scouting firm in New York City, tricking people into inputting their user names and passwords and gaining access to the firm's database, which has plot summaries and other information about upcoming publications.

Many unanswered issues exist even after Bernardini's arrest and his anticipated guilty plea.

The largest is his motivation and how, if at all, he intended to make money from his thefts. Hollywood scripts, for instance, are frequently the target of cybercriminals who attempt to profit by putting them online and charging viewers to read them. In other cybercrime operations, criminals use the dark web to sell stolen credentials and copies of legal publications.

However, the Justice Department never claimed in its indictment that Bernardini had sought to disseminate pirated or black-market versions of the manuscripts.

He may have been attempting to progress in an exclusive environment by enhancing his reputation with insider information about secret projects, according to others in the business who followed the drama.

Bernardini said on his LinkedIn page that he earned a master's degree in publishing from University College London and a bachelor's degree in the Chinese language from Università Cattolica in Milan. He worked on the Italian version of Rao Pingru's autobiography, "Our Story," by a Chinese comic book author. He had some experience translating. His goal, according to his LinkedIn profile, is to make sure that "books may be read and appreciated around the world and in different languages."