FBI agent accused of trying to help Pellicano

Mark T. Rossini, a charismatic and popular agent who once worked in the bureau's press office, was charged Monday with criminally accessing FBI computers on five occasions from January through July of last year, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Each of the charges is a misdemeanor.

Rossini allegedly was accessing the computers to find information that may have been helpful to Pellicano, who was tried and convicted of wiretapping and racketeering earlier this year in Los Angeles, said the source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Prosecutors suspect that Rossini conducted the searches at the behest of his girlfriend, actress Linda Fiorentino, who has ties to Pellicano, the source said.

An attempt to reach Fiorentino for comment was unsuccessful.

Adam S. Hoffinger, a lawyer in Washington who represents Rossini, declined to comment.

Attorney Michael Artan, who represented Pellicano, denied that the agent did anything at Pellicano's request.

"We had no knowledge about anything this agent was or was not doing," Artan said. "Nobody even knew Rossini."

Artan said Pellicano and Fiorentino were nothing more than "pen pals" who occasionally exchanged letters.

He said he didn't think the two had ever met in person. He said he did not know how their correspondence began.

At least one of the allegedly illegal computer searches appears to be related to an FBI report that was at issue in the months before Pellicano's trial.

The report -- leaked to Pellicano's defense team -- detailed a confidential informant's allegations that a warrant used to search the private investigator's Sunset Boulevard office was based on bogus information.

Defense attorneys wanted to know why prosecutors had not turned over the report, and the judge wanted more information about how the defense had obtained it in the first place.