President Donald Trump has pardoned a former FBI agent with ties to the City of Rye. This past week Trump issued eight commutations and 13 pardons on Thursday, January 15, 2026 and one additional pardon on Friday. Among the pardons on Thursday was one for a full and unconditional pardon for Mark T. Rossini, a former FBI agent with ties to Rye.
Rossini was connected to a campaign finance violation case involving Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez and Italian-Venezuelan billionaire businessman and banker Julio Martín Herrera Velutini. According to reports, Velutini allegedly promised to support Vázquez’s campaign if she dismissed the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (for Puerto Rico) and appointed a new one of Herrera’s choosing. Rossini was working for the billionaire Velutini as a consultant.
The Office of the Pardon Attorney at the US Department of Justice lists Vázquez, Velutini and Rossini being pardoned for charges that include conspiracy; federal program bribery; honest services wire fraud – related to the case United States v. Vazquez-Garced, et al., 3:22-CR-342.
Rossini
It is not Rossini’s first brush with trouble. In 2009, Rossini was sentenced to one-year of probation after previously pleading guilty to five separate counts of criminally accessing a sensitive FBI database for personal purposes. A FBI Special Agent since 1991, Rossini resigned from the FBI in November 2008 as part of his plea agreement.
In 2007, Rossini searched and downloaded a copy of a confidential informant’s FBI report and provided a copy to “a person with whom Rossini had a close personal relationship” and subsequently lied to the FBI about what he had done. The report related to a case involving Los Angeles private investigator, known Hollywood “fixer” and convicted felon Anthony Pellicano. Actress Linda Fiorentino was the connection between the two men, having dated both Pellicano and then Rossini.
When he was an FBI agent, Rossini was a FBI liaison to the CIA’s Bin Laden Issue Station, an inter-agency team assigned to track Osama bin Laden and his associates. Prior to 9/11, Rossini became aware that two al-Qaeda members, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, had valid US visas. The CIA forbade him to pass the information to FBI headquarters. al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were two of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 on 9-11, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
Connection to Rye
Rossini’s family home is in Rye on Highland Road at the corner of Meadow Place. The home belonged to his father John R. Rossini, who died in 2023, leaving the home to Mark and his brother John. Various sources show Rossini living in Rye, but also show him living in New York City and in Spain.
