An appeals court confirmed the homicide verdicts but commuted the life terms for both men, handing Finnegan Elder 24 years in prison and Gabriel Natale Hjorth 22.
Lawyers for Finnegan Elder and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, who received Italy’s toughest punishment for a 2019 fatal stabbing, hope to prove that their clients did not deserve such long terms.
2 Americans Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of Italian Police Officer
The two American men were teenagers in July 2019 when an early-morning scuffle with two plainclothes police officers in Rome turned deadly.
Gabriel Natale Hjorth, left, and Finnegan Elder on trial in Rome on Wednesday.Credit.Tiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
May 5, 2021
ROME Two American men were found guilty of murder on Wednesday and sentenced to life in prison for the street-corner killing of an Italian military police officer on an early summer morning, when the two young San Francisco natives were vacationing in Rome.
After deliberating for about 11 hours, a jury found Finnegan Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 20, guilty of the murder of Deputy Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega.
Prosecutor Seeks Life Sentence for Americans in Killing of Italian Officer
Two San Francisco men, she said, instigated a “violent, deadly, disproportionate attack” in a confrontation with plainclothes military police officers.
An Italian prosecutor asked for the maximum sentence for Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, left, and Finnegan Lee Elder, second from right, during their trial on Saturday.Credit.Pool photo by Alessandra Taratino
March 6, 2021
ROME An Italian prosecutor on Saturday asked that two San Francisco men on trial in the 2019 killing of a military police officer in Rome receive the maximum sentence of life in prison.
Wrapping up a nearly four-hour summation in a stuffy Rome courtroom, the prosecutor, Maria Sabina Calabretta, argued that the two men acted with “homicidal intent” when they assaulted Deputy Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega and his partner on a July night in 2019.