White-Collar Crime
Ex-FBI Agent Pleads in Case Related to Celebrity Wiretapping
Posted Dec 8, 2008, 04:51 pm CST
By Martha Neil
A former career FBI agent pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington, D.C., today to illegally accessing information in the agency's computers and passing it on, via actress Linda Fiorentino, to a lawyer for so-called PI to the stars Anthony Pellicano.
Mark Rossini pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of unauthorized access to the FBI's computer system, according to the Associated Press and ABC News. The charges concerned some 40 unauthorized computer searches, many of which related to Pellicano.
Rossini, who formerly dated Fiorentino, "improperly download(ed) a confidential informant's FBI report on the Pellicano matter ... giving it to a person 'with whom [he] had a close personal relationship,' " the ABC article recounts. "According to prosecutors, X—who has been identified in media reports as Fiorentino—also had a previous relationship with Pellicano and gave a copy of the FBI report to an attorney for Pellicano."
As discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, Pellicano and California attorney Terry Christensen, who retained the private investigator, have already been convicted of wiretapping offenses in connection with dirty-tricks litigation tactics in celebrity cases.
Rossini is expected to get about six months when he is sentenced in March.
Earlier ABAJournal.com coverage:
LA Lawyer Gets 3 Years in Wiretap Case, Not Beverly Hills Home Confinement
Attorney and PI Convicted in Celebrity Wiretapping Case
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