Lawyers vow to appeal sentences of two Americans found guilty of murder of Italian policeman

The families of two California students convicted of stabbing to death an Italian cop in a botched drug deal have slammed their life sentences as ‘befitting a Mafia boss who wantonly kills innocent people.’

A spokesman for the family of Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, claimed it ‘made no sense’ to put him and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, ‘on the same level as cold-blooded killers’ by slapping them with the harshest possible sentence of life imprisonment.

The lawyers for the two Americans have already vowed to appeal the decision by the First Court of Assizes of Rome and called the verdict a ‘shame for Italy’ and ‘mockery of justice’.

Elder and Natale-Hjorth were found guilty Wednesday for the murder of Italian police officer Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, 35, in 2019. Elder stabbed Rega 11 times with a seven-inch Rambo knife and Natale-Hjorth later helped him hide the knife. 

Both men maintain their innocence, claiming the undercover cop and his colleague jumped them from behind. They claim they thought the officers were thugs sent to attack them by a drug dealer who had sold them fake cocaine. 

A jury in Rome deliberated for just over 12 hours before delivering the verdicts on Wednesday and handing the men Italy’s stiffest sentence for Rega’s murder.

Elder and Natale-Hjorth, who became friends while attending Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, were found guilty on all charges: homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause.    

US lawyer and Elder family spokesman Craig Peters blasted the jury for handing the two Americans the same sentence given to mobsters who assassinate state officials asking how they could have grouped them in the ‘same league’.  

‘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, said Thursday.

‘How could these two boys possibly be in that same league? So from a reasoned standpoint, the verdict didn’t make any sense to hold them guilty on every single charge.’ 

He added: ‘And from a compassion standpoint, it made no sense to put them on the same level as cold-blooded killers… even the prosecutor acknowledged there was no premeditation here.’

Renato Borzone, who represents Elder, said the verdict would be appealed as he called the sentence ‘a shame for Italy.’ 

‘This sentence represents a shame for Italy with judges who do not want to see what emerged during the investigation and the trial,’ said Borzone. 

‘I have never seen such an unworthy thing. We will appeal,’ he said, claiming that his client, Elder, had been acting in self defense. 

Lawyer Francesco Petrelli, who was defending Natale-Hjorth, said: ‘This was a technically flawed sentence both in fact and in law, which cannot be confirmed at appeal, but which has left us shocked.’ 

Elder and Natale-Hjorth have the right to two appeals before their sentence becomes definitive.  

Italy’s justice system is supposed to stress rehabilitation and many sentenced to life imprisonment are often released after serving 20 years. 

There is an ongoing debate, however, over whether convicted mobsters, serving time for crimes including multiple murders and bombings that killed magistrates and anti-Mafia investigators, should have to stay in prison until death. 

Prosecutors alleged that Elder stabbed Rega 11 times with a Rambo-style knife that he brought with him on his trip to Europe from California and that Natale-Hjorth helped him hide the knife in their hotel room.

The stabbing unfolded on July 26, 2019, after Natale-Hjorth and Elder tried to buy cocaine with 80 euros ($96) from a man outside the hotel where they were staying in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district, but were sold a crushed-up bag of aspirin instead. 

The pair then allegedly stole a bag belonging to the suspected drug dealer and demanded 100 euros and a gram of cocaine for him to get it back.

The man agreed and told the pair he would meet them to exchange the bag, but instead called police to report the theft. Rega and his partner, wearing plainclothes, were dispatched to the agreed meeting spot where they confronted the two Americans and identified themselves in Italian as police before Elder stabbed Rega. 

Rega’s widow Rosa Maria Esilio, who held a photo of her dead husband while waiting for the verdict, sobbed and hugged his brother Paolo as it was read out in court. 

‘It has been a long and painful process. This will not bring Mario back to me. It will not bring him back to life, it will not give us back our lives together,’ she said.

‘Today the first stone has been laid for a new justice. Mario’s integrity has been demonstrated despite in death he had to undergo many insinuations ‘. 

The defendants were led immediately out of the courtroom after hearing ‘guilty’ declared on all counts.  

As Elder was being walked out, his father Ethan Elder called out, ‘Finnegan, I love you.’

Both men told investigators they did not know Rega and his partner were police because they were not in uniform. 

The killing of the officer from the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps – who had recently returned from his honeymoon – shocked Italy where he was mourned as a national hero.  

Elder and Natale-Hjorth were allowed out of steel-barred defendant cages inside the courtroom to sit with their lawyers before the case went to the jury, which consisted of presiding judge Finiti, a second judge and six civilian jurors.

‘I’m stressed,’ Elder said to one of his lawyers. 

Just before the brief court appearance, Elder took a crucifix he wears on a chain around his neck and kissed it. 

He also turned to his co-defendant, Natale-Hjorth, and held out the crucifix toward him through a glass partition, motioning heavenward.

Elder was joined in the courtroom by his parents. He and his father crossed their fingers toward each other for good luck after the jury went to deliberate. 

Natale-Hjorth was greeted by his Italian uncle, who lives in Italy.

While it was Elder who drove the knife into Rega, Natale-Hjorth faced the same charges because under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder even without materially doing the slaying. 

Prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta demanded life imprisonment for both defendants.

At the time of the slaying, Elder was 19 and traveling through Europe without his family, while Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was spending the summer vacation with his Italian grandparents, who live near Rome. 

Former schoolmates from the San Francisco Bay area, the two had met up in Rome for what was supposed to be couple of days of sightseeing and nights out.

During the trial, which began on February 26, 2020, the defendants told the court that several hours before the stabbing, they had attempted to buy cocaine in the Trastevere nightlife district of Rome. 

With the intervention of a go-between, they paid a dealer, but instead of cocaine they received an aspirin-like tablet.

Before Natale-Hjorth could confront the dealer, a separate Carabinieri patrol in the neighbourhood intervened, and all scattered. 

The Americans snatched the go-between’s knapsack in reprisal, and used a cellphone that was inside to set up a meeting with the goal of exchanging the bag and the phone for the cash they had lost in the bad drug deal. 

When they arrived at the set spot for the exchange with the dealer they were met instead by Rega, wearing a T-shirt and long shorts, and his partner Andrea Varriale, in a polo shirt and jeans. 

Prosecutors alleged that Elder thrust a seven-inch military-style attack knife repeatedly into Rega, who bled profusely, like a ‘fountain,’ Varriale had testified, and died shortly after in hospital.

Elder told the court that the heavy-set Rega, scuffling with him, was on top of him on the ground, and he feared that he was being strangled. 

Elder said he pulled out the knife and stabbed him to avoid being killed, and when the officer didn’t immediately let him go, he stabbed again.

After the stabbing, the Americans ran to their hotel room, where, according to Natale-Hjorth, Elder cleaned the knife and then asked him to hide it. 

Natale-Hjorth testified that he hid the knife behind a ceiling panel in their room, where it was discovered hours later by police.

The defendants told the court that they acted in self defense because they thought Rega and Varriale were thugs or mobsters out to assault them on a dark, deserted street.  

They said they didn’t know the men were police because they didn’t show their badges and spoke in Italian, which the defendants didn’t understand.  

From practically its start, the trial largely boiled down to the word of Varriale against that of the young American visitors. 

Varriale, who suffered a back injury in a scuffle with Natale-Hjorth while his partner was grappling with Elder, testified that the officers did identify themselves as Carabinieri. 

As the trial neared its end, one of Elder’s defense lawyers, Renato Borzone, argued in court that deep-set psychiatric problems, including a constant fear of being attacked, figured in the fatal stabbing. 

Borzone told the court his client saw a world filled with enemies due to ‘psychiatric problems’ and that something ‘short-circuited’ when Elder was confronted by the officer.