Book thief Filippo Bernardini claims love of reading drove him to steal 

An Italian bookworm who used his position in the industry to swipe hundreds of unpublished manuscripts claimed in court papers Friday that he pulled off the ruse because he wanted to read books before they hit stores. 

Book manuscript thief Filippo Bernardini, 30, pleaded guilty in January to one count of wire fraud for stealing the manuscripts, including titles written by Margaret Atwood, Ethan Hawke and Ian McEwan, from 2016 through 2022. 

He pulled off the thefts by slightly altering email addresses of industry professionals, and would then trick people with access to the manuscript he sought into giving him an advanced copy, Manhattan federal prosecutors charged. 

“Why did he do it? Why would someone go to such lengths to obtain so many unpublished manuscripts and then do nothing with them? Not sell them. Not share them. Not seek to enrich himself financially in any way with them?” Bernardini’s attorney, Jennifer Brown, wrote in a sentencing submission filed Friday. 

 “He wanted to read books before they were published,” she added. 

In the lengthy submission, Brown wrote Bernardini grew up as a lonely, bullied gay child in a conservative section of Italy who found comfort by burying himself in books. 

His love of literature led him to college in Milan and later to graduate school in London, where he landed internships at a publishing house and a literary agency. 

He was hired by Simon and Schuster in 2019, where he stayed until the FBI arrested him for his yearslong fraud at JFK Airport in January 2022. 

In his own letter to Judge Colleen McMahon, Bernardini apologized for his crime, but claimed it was all done so he could dive into the stories before they were available to the general public.

“I never wanted to and I never leaked these manuscripts. I wanted to keep them closely to my chest and be one of the fewest to cherish them before anyone else, before they ended up in bookshops,” he wrote. 

“There were times where I read the manuscripts and I felt a special and unique connection with the author, almost like I was the editor of that book,” he added. 

Bernardini is set to be sentenced in April and could face up to 21 months in prison. His attorneys have asked the judge to sentence him to time served.