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Two arrested for sending poo-stained toilet paper to thousands of celebrities

Two people have been arrested in northern Italy for allegedly sending thousands of threatening letters - often including toilet paper stained with faeces - to public figures.

Published: 27 January 2017 09:35 CET
Updated: 27 January 2017 10:42 CET

Two arrested for sending poo-stained toilet paper to thousands of celebrities

File photo: Pexels

The bizarre scheme had been going on for two years, with the letters sent to high profile figures from the worlds of sport, TV, business and politics.

The Milan branch of Digos, Italy's anti-terrorism squad, tracked down the pair and arrested them on Wednesday for threats and defamation. The senders were a 71-year-old former police officer and his partner, aged 51, Ansa reported.

“The man followed the news closely and was very up-to-date on things,” Digos officer Carmine Mele told the news agency. “He had sent the letters practically everywhere.”

They sent threatening messages to the directors of Copenhagen Zoo, teachers accused of child abuse, football clubs and politicians, and many others. Many of the envelopes included toilet paper soiled with their pet dog's faeces.

A notebook found in the couple's home contained names and addresses of the unlucky recipients – along with the reason for targeting them.

As shown in a photo of the book shared by police, names were divided into categories, including “murderer” “paedophile” and “corruption”. A raid on the couple's house reportedly revealed 110 more letters, all addressed, stamped and ready to be sent.

A page from the notebook found in the couple's home. Photo: Italian police

Digos officers were able to track down the pair after observing the letters all shared some similar characteristics: black ink, cursive writing, and stamps from foreign countries (most often Azerbaijan, Bhuta and Zaire). The letters were then traced to Milan.

Oolice caught the two in the act, posting yet another letter in a letterbox in the Basiglio district of the northern city – as shown in the police video below.

Italian court cuts sentences of Americans convicted of killing police officer

Following a retrial ordered by Italy’s highest court that began in March, the Rome appeal court resentenced Finnegan Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth to 15 years and 11 years in prison respectively.

Elder and Natale-Hjorth, from San Francisco, aged 19 and 18 at the time of the killing, were sentenced to life in prison in May 2021 for stabbing policeman Mario Cerciello to death during a late-night encounter.

An appeal court the following year reduced the sentence to 24 years for Elder, who wielded the knife, and 22 years for Natale-Hjorth, who did not handle the weapon but helped hide it.

But Italy’s highest court in March 2023 ordered a retrial to examine potentially mitigating factors, notably that the teenagers said they were unaware that Cerciello and his partner, who were in plain clothes at the time of the attack, were police.

Elder’s lawyers, Renato Borzone and Roberto Capra, said in a statement Wednesday that the court’s decision was “certainly more in line with Finnegan’s actual responsibilities”.

“It is regrettable that we have had to wait through five levels of jurisdiction to see recognised what the young American man has stated since his first interrogation,” they said.

The case horrified Italy and led to an outpouring of public grief for the newlywed Cerciello, who was hailed as a national hero.

But the trial, which revealed multiple examples of police error, offered two very different versions about what happened in the moments just before Elder stabbed Cerciello with an 11-inch (28-centimetre) camping knife on a dark Rome street.

READ ALSO: Italy orders retrial for Americans convicted of killing police officer

While the prosecution’s star witness, Cerciello’s partner Andrea Varriale, testified that the officers were suddenly attacked, the teens said the two men jumped them from behind and did not identify themselves nor show their badges.

The Americans claimed self-defence, saying they thought the men were drug dealers, following their botched attempt to buy drugs earlier in the evening.

Defence lawyers had denounced the life sentences originally given to their clients – Italy’s toughest criminal sentence – saying they were harsher than many given for premeditated killings by the mafia.

The high-profile case also threw a spotlight on police conduct in Italy after Natale-Hjorth was blindfolded while in custody.

The officer who blindfolded him was later handed a two-month suspended sentence.

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