yyang
lvl.1
United States
Offline
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On the weekend of July 6, 2018, I traveled to Venice, Italy for a weekend during my study abroad trip and I flew my Phantom 4 in Venice. I was flying it in a quiet area with few people passing by occasionally. After a while, 3 Italian police came by boat and came up to me and asked for my passport and address. They took my drone away and deleted the footage with them in it. I did not know I wasn't allowed to fly a drone in Venice and apologized and said I can delete all the footage that I took of Venice; I will not fly my drone anymore and I will cause no more trouble in Venice since I'd be leaving the next morning.
The police appointed me a public defender lawyer in Italy before I left their office. the officers told me that whether I get my drone back or not or if I'd get a fine would depend on the judge. After I reached out to my public offender lawyer but she never responded to me no matter how much I tried. I've tried reaching out to her by email, phone call, website contact form many times and still no response. I tried contacting the police department but the police department in Venice asked me to email another sector of their department and I explained what happened and I asked if they could appoint me another one who actually would answer my emails or calls. However, another sector of the police dept also did not answer me. So I emailed the police dept in Venice again, and no response.
I am frustrated by this since no one seems to be helping me to get my drone back. I emailed many lawyers from the US Embassy in Italy and only 2 of them responded but the legal fees were so expensive. (€ 1500+) I have many footages on the SD card and it would just be all gone. The police did tell me that they could impound my drone. I do not know if they had impounded or not but I'd still want to get my SD card back with all my footage.
Do you think that there is a possibility that I'd get it back? Is there any cheap way that I can get my drone and footage back? What would you recommend me to do?
Thank you very much in advance for any suggestions.
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