Posted on 07/29/2019 9:25:38 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes
SOMMA VESUVIANA, ITALYWhen 19-year-old Finnegan Elder and 18-year-old Gabe Natale Hjorth were first met by two undercover police officers with Italys military Carabiniere police force on a dark street near the Vatican in Rome, they thought they were about to get jumped.
According to a 14-page document from the investigating judge, which was reviewed by The Daily Beast, the two Americans had earlier approached Sergio Brugiatelli, a layabout who can always be found on Piazza Mastei in Rome's Trastevere district, for cocaine. Brugiatelli pointed them to a pusher. The Americans allegedly thought they were buying cocaine, but when their 100 purchase ended up being crushed aspirin, they returned and stole Brugiatelli's backpack in revenge. Brugiatelli called his phone, which rang from inside the stolen backpack, and they set up a plan to meet and exchange the bag for 100 and a gram of cocaine.
The document states that Elders and Natale Hjorths stories sync about the drug deal, the stolen backpack, and the plan to meet Brugiatelli. Then, things diverge. Natale Hjorth, who is a dual American-Italian citizen, though he has never lived in Italy, says he had no idea Elder was carrying a knife when they went meet who they thought would be Brugiatelli. But Elder says they had both agreed to take it with them "just in case."
Police say they doubt, given the size of the weapon, that Natale Hjorth could not have known his friend had it on him. Elder also accuses his friend of finding the drug connection based on friends he knows from Natale Hjorths summers visiting his grandfather in Italy. Natale Hjorth instead claims the drug buy was all his friends idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Some new details:
* The officers were not armed, which has led to some questions.
* The drug dealer might be an informant.
* One American teen has dual citizenship but lived in the U.S.
Holy Toledo. Drug deals gone bad are not for the faint of heart. Getting revenge sometimes doesn’t work out.
That didn’t take long.
As for the Carabiniere, I remember those guys always carrying machine guns...while they patrolled the streets. They weren’t shy about having weapons.
Odd the cop didn’t have a gun.
When I drove a cab and used to bring people from the wealthier parts of Staten Island to the poor parts to get drugs, they would EIGHTY percent of the time get cheated.
Anything that could resemble the drugs of choice was sold.
We used to call the trips “crack and back” because we took the people to the bad area, they got their crack and we took them home.
Payment UP FRONT.
Some went INTO the projects to get their drugs.
And some never came out. At least in the 15 minutes or so I waited.
When it was a girl I waited longer but after a while I gave up on that.
One correction. 80 percent is probably too high.
But EASILY 60 percent.
Actions have consequences. No sympathy for drug users that turn to violence. Let the Italian justice system run out.
“And some never came out. At least in the 15 minutes or so I waited”.
Lol.
It is odd. The theory seems to be that maybe these two officers agreed to do a favor for an informant - to get his backpack back and scare off the American teens, perhaps?
Girl be trading a train of cocaine
If you’re using the word train here like I think you are, you are likely right.
Too disgusting to think about.
The guys story has now changed three times since I first looked into it..initially he said he stabbed him because the cop was strangling him but they saw no marks at all on his neck..
These kids were druggies looking for a high and stupid enough to rob the informant who turned them in...went downhill from there. Heck they’re even on tape. Add into the mix they were buying in a foreign country and that’s always a huge risk.
officer Mario Cerciello Rega and his wife....Just Married 40 days ago.
As much as you are correct, it also looks like the cops were more than just a little bit dirty themselves -- a little free-lance enforcement for the drug connection.
The moral of the story is "don't do drugs" and especially don't do them in another country.
I don’t think the cops are dirty....it’s not unusual for informants to be coddled to in most cities...plus this is Italy no less.
Both this murder case and the Kercher case involved American suspects. And both cases made headline news.
But, the opposite also happens: some Americans have been murdered in Italy.
This 19yo American student was murdered in Rome in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExNK2FMJDxY
Sad to say, I never heard his story until now.
Amen.
SCUMBAGS are always gonna be SCUMBAGS; kill’em both and be done with it.
Yep. Sad reality is this stuff drags society and us on dark fringes. I had to take a polygraph test the other day and it was like a psychoanalysis wake up call for me. All kinds of things like talking to people at work who do pot or other shenanigans are like a potential black eye or even crime on such a test, but we are induced to deal with it like it is normal by and by with TV , acquaintances and what not. Terrible.
New information:
Summary:
* The officers had been trailing the two Americans and watched the drug deal.
* Rega (allegedly) forgot his gun at home.
* His partner was armed (despite previous reports) but says he couldn’t legally shoot the suspects because they were running away.
* Elder brought the murder weapon (7-inch knife) to Italy from the U.S.
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