Defense seek leniency for US men in Italian officer slaying

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — The defense for two young men from California convicted last year of murdering an Italian police office have begun arguments to seek leniency at their appeals trial in Rome. Finnegan Lee Elder, now 22, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, now 21, are serving life sentences in Italian prisons for the 2019 slaying. Carabinieri Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, was stabbed 11 times near the hotel where the Americans were vacationing in Rome. Defense lawyer Roberto Capra at the appeals trial hearing on Thursday insisted that the Americans didn’t know that Cerciello Rega and his fellow plainclothes officer didn’t know they were police investigating an alleged small-scale extortion attempt by the defendants.