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CNN
15-07-2025
- CNN
American accused in murders of mother and baby appears before Italian judge after extradition
A 46-year-old American man accused of the murders of a 29-year-old woman and her baby has faced a preliminary legal hearing in Rome after being extradited to Italy. The California native, named in an international arrest warrant and by Italian police as Francis Kaufmann, was extradited from Greece over the weekend. Italian police say he previously used an authentic US passport in the name of Rexal Ford and an Italian identity card in the name of Matteo Capozzi. The preliminary hearing took place in Rome's Rebibbia prison on Tuesday. According to the Rome prosecutor's office, Kaufmann exercised his right not to answer any questions and did not respond to the charges against him. He was questioned by investigating judge Flavia Costantini and Rome prosecutor Giuseppe Cascini, and was represented by lawyer Carlo Ludovico Favino, the prosecutor's office said. The bodies of Anastasia Trofimova and her 11-month-old baby were found separately in overgrown areas of Rome's Villa Pamphili park on June 7. The baby had been starved and strangled, but the cause of her mother's death has still not been determined, police said in early July. The victims' identities were unknown for more than a week before an Italian TV show that highlights missing persons ran photos released by police of Trofimova's extensive tattoos, which her mother in Moscow recognized after a friend sent them to her. Subsequently interviewed for the missing persons show, Trofimova's mother said her daughter had met a man she knew by the name Rexal Ford in Malta, where she was studying English. She had never met her granddaughter, but was in sporadic touch with the couple and child, she told Italian investigators and Italian media. Kaufmann, who has denied involvement in the murders, was arrested on the Greek island of Skiathos on June 13. He fought extradition through a local lawyer who no longer represents him. Italian police say his DNA was found on the black garbage bag in which Trofimova's body was found. DNA testing to determine if Kaufmann is the baby's father will be carried out now that he is in Italy. Kaufmann, who promoted himself as a film producer and screenwriter, used his Rexal Ford alias to scout movie locations, including several rooftop terraces in Rome, Cascini said in a press conference last week announcing Kaufmann's impending extradition to Rome. Italian police said in a press conference on June 11 that Kaufmann, Trofimova and the baby lived rough in various parks in Rome and ate at the city's soup kitchens, despite him having multiple credit cards and often taking potential film investors to expensive restaurants. CNN's Antonia Mortensen contributed to this report.
Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The ‘Untalented Mr Ripley' accused of double murder
A Hollywood fraudster who fooled the Italian government into funding a non-existent film is at the centre of a real-life murder investigation after he was accused of killing his partner and daughter. Francis Charles Kaufmann, 46, fled from Italy to the Greek island of Skiathos after the discovery of the bodies in a park in Rome last month. He has been arrested and awaits extradition. He is, according to the Italian magistrate Flavia Costantini, 'a highly skilled criminal'. The hunt for Kaufmann started on June 7 when the body of Anastasia Trofimova, a 28-year-old Russian, was found hidden in the bushes in Villa Pamphili park. Trofimova is likely to have died of suffocation. Nearby, the body of her 11-month-old daughter was found, possibly strangled. Witnesses had seen the mother and daughter sleeping rough in the park with a man who had also been spotted drunkenly wandering with them around the centre of Rome, and who was identified during a police check as Rexal Ford. This was later found to be a fake name used by the American. The man's final encounter with police was on June 5, when he was seen walking without the woman but carrying the baby in one arm and a bottle of wine in the other. Officers let him go, although investigators suspect Trofimova may have already been dead by then, and the infant had hours left to live. Kaufmann, a Californian, had posed as a film producer in Rome to obtain €863,595 in tax credits from the Italian culture ministry for a film that was never made. The head of the ministry's film department resigned over the incident this week. Using another alias — Matteo Capozzi — Kaufmann claimed to have worked with the American director Clint Eastwood and on the 2017 Ridley Scott film All the Money in the World, which has been denied by the production. Investigators realised they were searching for a fraudster whose life increasingly resembled the film and novel The Talented Mr Ripley, in which an American con artist invents his past and goes on a killing spree in Italy. Kaufmann is said to have met Trofimova while she was on holiday in Malta in 2023. Their daughter was born last summer. Since Trofimova's tourist visa had expired, Kaufmann chartered a yacht to take them to Sicily to avoid customs upon entering Italy. Once in Rome, Kaufmann tried to broker new film deals but appears to have run out of money. When his real name emerged, the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica tracked down his sister in Los Angeles, who claimed Kaufmann was a dangerous con man. 'Charlie was brilliant, he had a way with people,' she told the newspaper. 'He knew how to empathise immediately. When he lived in Los Angeles he would go to dinner with Hollywood directors, with famous musicians. He knew hundreds of stars of the entertainment world.' Even though he studied film he had only been involved in a few productions, she added. 'He would be capable of selling you your own clothes. He has always been brilliant, handsome, with thousands of women flocking after him,' she said. 'At home we called him the Untalented Mr Ripley.' He also had a dark side, she claimed. 'He is violent, especially when he drinks or takes drugs. His brain goes blank, he cannot manage his anger. He becomes a monster.' She added that after attacking one of his brothers, he changed his name to Rexal Ford and left the US. Italian magistrates have reported that Kaufmann was arrested for assault five times in the US and had spent 120 days in jail. On June 5, the day he was spotted by police with Andromeda, Kaufmann left a voice mail for an Italian contact, claiming Trofimova had left him for a richer man, leaving him with the baby. 'Unfortunately, she is not seeing the big future,' he said, adding: 'Whatever it is, it's all good.' On June 11 Kaufmann took a Ryanair flight to Skiathos and was arrested two days later. He will be brought back to Rome for interrogation next week. In a video conference with an Italian magistrate, he said: 'I am innocent, I didn't kill them.' He also accused the Italian police of being 'mafiosi'. Writing in the arrest warrant, Costantini accused Kaufmann of strangling his daughter, describing it as an act of 'instinctive cruelty' that revealed 'the extreme dangerousness of the man'.
