I would imagine it was just the first obvious Italian name that came to Shigeru Miyamoto's head when he thought that there needed to be another character. Origin stories are often much less interesting than you wish they were.

It all comes down to the laws connected to "Larceny by Conversion", which basically asks the questions of the intent when the phone was originally taken. Did he mean to give it back originally? Or did he take it with the intent to make a profit? Or other possible scenarios. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. My gut tells me someone is going to get whacked, but I just don't know who or how badly.

It is very nice to see that American universities are staying on top of technology and making sure their students get some very useful hands-on experience with technology of the future. Sure, this case is an outlier, but at least someone is doing it. I can't wait to see what comes out of some other programs in the coming years.