Attorney, parents react after Marin classmates get Italy s harshest sentence
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Finnegan Lee Elder, wipes his eye, as he and his co-defendant Gabriel Natale-Hjorth listen as the verdict is read, in the trial for the slaying of an Italian plainclothes police officer on a street near the hotel where they were staying while on vacation in Rome in summer 2019, in Rome, Wednesday, May 5, 2021. A jury in Rome on Wednesday convicted two American friends in the 2019 slaying of a police officer in a drug sting gone awry, sentencing them to life in prison. The jury deliberated more than 12 hours before delivering the verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 20, handing them Italy s stiffest sentence.Gregorio Borgia/AP
Life Sentences for 2 Americans in Italian Cop s Murder Befitting a Mafia Boss, Lawyer Says
On 5/6/21 at 2:54 PM EDT
After two young American friends from California were sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in Italy for the murder of an Italian police officer in 2019, U.S. lawyer Craig Peters said it was a punishment befitting a mafia boss and a mockery of justice, the
Associated Press reported.
Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, received Italy s harshest sentence in a trial that lasted more than 14 months after Elder stabbed Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega to death in Rome while Natale-Hjorth later hid the knife in their hotel room.
Family Upset 2 California Men Got Italy s Harshest Sentence in Police Stabbing Death When prosecutors sought an indictment for two American teenagers for the fatal 2019 stabbing in Rome of an Italian paramilitary officer, they described them as being in cahoots from start to finish By Frances D Emilio •
NBC Universal, Inc.
The family of one of two California men, both convicted of a fatal stabbing during a scuffle with an Italian police officer, on Thursday blasted the jury for ordering Italy’s harshest punishment of life imprisonment, a sentence frequently meted out to mobsters who assassinate state officials.
Months after the July 26, 2019 slaying of Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome, prosecutors asked for indictments for the two teenage friends from California. They described the defendants, then 19 and 18, as being in cahoots from start to finish, even though only one of them wielded the knife in what their lawyers steadfastly con
Natale-Hjorth testified that he didn’t know Elder had a knife on him.
The two police officers, in casual summer plainclothes, had been dispatched to follow up on an alleged small-scale extortion attempt. The two Americans had paid for cocaine in a Rome nightlife district but didn’t get it. In retaliation, they snatched a backpack with a cellphone that belonged to the go-between of the botched deal. The go-between told police he had been contacted by Natale-Hjorth, who told the man he’d give back the bag and the phone if they got their money back.
“They gave him and they gave Gabe a sentence that is befitting a Mafia boss who wantonly kills innocent people,″ Peters, a spokesman for the Elder family, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.
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ROME The family of one of two Americans, both convicted of a fatal stabbing during a scuffle with an Italian police officer, on Thursday blasted the jury for ordering Italy’s harshest punishment of life imprisonment, a sentence frequently meted out to mobsters who assassinate state officials.
Months after the July 26, 2019 slaying of Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome, prosecutors asked for indictments for the two teenage friends from California. They described the defendants, then 19 and 18, as being in cahoots from start to finish, even though only one of them wielded the knife in what their lawyers steadfastly contended was in self-defense.