Italian attorneys for Bay Area man convicted in Rome officer death file motion for home detention
ROME, Italy (KGO) -- Italian attorneys for Marin County's Gabriel Natale-Hjorth have filed a motion requesting home detention for the 23-year-old.
Last week, the court of appeals in Rome confirmed the murder conviction for Natale's friend, 24-year-old Finnegan Elder of San Francisco, but reduced his sentence of nearly 24 years in prison to 15 years, two months. The court found that two members of the Carabinieri, the Italian national police, were wearing plain clothes at the time of the incident and had not identified themselves properly. The judge also reduced Natale's conviction to what amounts to negligence and sentenced him to 11 years in prison.
His attorneys argue that, because Natale is no longer convicted of a violent crime, he should be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement. He has been in prison since July 2019.
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The two were on vacation when police interrupted a drug transaction and the former classmates at Mill Valley's Tamalpais High School escaped with the dealer's backpack that contained a cell phone. The dealer, who happened to be a police informant, called his phone, reached the two men from the Bay Area, and set a meeting to retrieve the backpack. He also called police.
Two officers in plain clothes confronted Elder and Natale on a Rome street corner at 3 a.m. Natale was able to run away, but one officer pinned Elder on his back, and he stabbed the officer until he was able to get away.
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Natale's father and attorneys declined to comment for this story, but Natale has a grandmother who lives near Rome where he could stay and serve the remainder of the term.
The court will hear a response from the prosecution, and the officer's widow before making a decision on the home confinement motion, perhaps as early as the end of July.
