A key senator wants to know whether the FBI told the Massachusetts State Police that the bureau had a “long-standing relationship” with alleged mobster Mark Rossetti.
According to media reports, associates of Rossetti’s have asked that evidence in a criminal case against them be prohibited from being entered as evidence, saying that state police officials failed to inform defense attorneys about the relationship between Rossetti and the FBI.
“Mr. Rossetti is currently under state indictment for a multitude of crimes including home invasions, heroin and marijuana trafficking, gambling, and loan sharking,” Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), wrote in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller. “Additionally Mr. Rossetti was convicted of armed robbery, beating a Massachusetts State Trooper nearly to death and was a suspect in multiple murders and the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum art heist, the largest in Boston history.”
Grassley says that despite “all these alleged crimes and the claim that Mr. Rossetti was running a sprawling criminal enterprise, it appears that the FBI may have engaged in a long-term relationship with Mr. Rossetti. In fact, as early as 1992, an FBI agent’s pager number was found on Mr. Rossetti and former Massachusetts State Detective Bill McGreal stated that an FBI agent declined to pursue a case against Mr. Rossetti saying, we decided to pass on Rossetti despite strong evidence from a cooperating witnesses.
DOJ officials in Massachusetts have come under scrutiny amid reports of ties between law enforcement and recently arrested mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.
