By Allan Lengel
Ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON – FBI Agent Mark T. Rossini, who became fodder for the New York gossip columns when he started dating actress Linda Fiorentino, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Washington to illegally accessing FBI computers to help rogue private eye Anthony Pellicano during his Los Angles trial on wiretapping and racketeering charges.
The dapper 47-year-old Rossini, clad in a charcoal gray pinstriped-suit and vest, with white shirt and purplish tie, pleaded guilty to five-misdemeanor counts of criminal computer access. Sentencing was set for March on Friday the 13th. Each count carries a maximum of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Rossini, looking very somber, told U.S. District Magistrate Judge John M. Focciola that he agreed with the government’s five-page statement of offense that accused him of accessing the FBI’s Automated Case Support System (ACS) more than 40 times for personal use in Washington and New York between Jan 3, 2007 and July 30, 2007.
At one point, the government report said that Rossini downloaded an FBI document known as a “302 report” on Jan. 26, 2007 and gave it to someone only referred to as “X”. That person was Fiorentino .
Fiorentino, who had “a previous relationship with Anthony Pellicano” provided a copy of the report to a Pellincano attorney in San Francisco, the document said. The attorneys then used the document in Pellicano’s trial to say that the government was withholding “exculpratory information from the defense.”
Little did the attorneys know, the government document said, that the judge had privately told the government in an ex-parte communication that it did not have to hand over the document. Pellicano was eventually convicted of running a criminal enterprise that illegally snooped on high profile celebrities.
The government document went on to say: “On or about July 9, 2007, an online magazine “Radar Online” published a report relating to the defendant, and the government’s prosecution of Anthony Pellicano. The defendant told his supervisors that the article was entirely false, when in fact that was not the case.
“Agents from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (OIG) interviewed the
defendant on February 25, 2008, in the presence of his prior attorney,” the document said.”The defendant falsely denied that he obtained FBI information without authorization, or that he provided any FBI information to outside persons. He also denied transmitting the FBI 302 report to any person outside the FBI.”
Rossini, who is likely not to get jail time because he pleaded guilty and quit his job, left the courtroom without comment. Under the sentencing guidelines, he could get a sentence of 0 to 6 months.
During this time Agent Rossini was going through a divorce. Perhaps he did it for money and love.