Rome jury convicts Bay Area friends in slaying of policeman
ROME >> A jury convicted two high school friends from Marin County on Wednesday in the 2019 slaying of a police officer in a tragic unraveling of a small time drug deal gone bad, sentencing them to the maximum life in prison.
The jury of two judges and six civilians deliberated more than 12 hours before delivering the verdicts against former Tamalais High School students Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 20, handing them Italy’s stiffest sentence.
Elder and Natale-Hjorth were found guilty of all charges: homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause. There was a gasp in the Rome courtroom as the presiding judge, Marina Finiti, read the verdict.
Prosecutors alleged that Elder stabbed Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times with a 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. Under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder even without materially doing the slaying.
The July 26, 2019, killing of the officer in the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps shocked Italy. Cerciello Rega, 35, was mourned as a national hero.
The slain officer’s widow, who held a photo of her dead husband while waiting for the verdict, broke down in tears and hugged his brother, Paolo.
The defendants were led immediately out of the courtroom after the verdicts were read. As Elder was being walked out, his father, Ethan Elder, called out, “Finnegan, I love you.” Both of his parents looked stunned.
For the brief final hearing before deliberations Wednesday, the two Californians were allowed out of steel-barred defendant cages inside the courtroom to sit with their lawyers before the case went to the jury.
“I’m stressed,” Elder said to one of his lawyers. Elder fingered a crucifix he wears on a chain around his neck and kissed it before the jury went out. He also turned to his co-defendant, Natale-Hjorth, and held the crucifix toward him through a glass partition, motioning heavenward.
Natale-Hjorth was greeted by his father and Italian uncle, who were present for the deliberations.
Cerciello Rega had recently returned from a honeymoon when he was assigned along with partner, officer Andrea Varriale, to follow up on a reported extortion attempt. They went in plainclothes, and didn’t carry their service pistols.
Prosecutors contend the young Americans concocted a plot involving a stolen bag and cellphone after their failed attempt to buy cocaine with $96 in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district. Natale-Hjorth and Elder testified they had paid for the cocaine but didn’t receive it. Both defendants contended they acted in self-defense.