| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 26, 2008 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
SAN JOSE – United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced that United States District Court Judge James Ware on Monday sentenced defendant Mark Charles Zelinsky to three years in prison for possessing child pornography on a government computer.
The defendant, 57, of San Bruno, California, pleaded guilty on December 17, 2007. In August of 2005, Zelinsky was employed as an engineer at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) in Moffett Field, California. Zelinsky no longer works at the NASA-ARC Center. According to the plea agreement, Zelinsky admitted that while employed at NASA, he used his NASA government computer to download from the Internet visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Zelinsky admitted to possessing over 600 images of child pornography, including images depicting prepubescent minors. Zelinsky also admitted that two of the child pornography images he possessed portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct.
The sentence was handed down by United States District Court Judge James Ware following a guilty plea to a single count in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4). In addition to sentencing the defendant to serve 36 months in federal prison, Judge Ware ordered that the defendant be placed on a term of supervised release for seven years following his release from prison and that he register as a sex offender.
Joseph A. Fazioli is the Assistant United States Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Legal Assistant Jeanne Carstensen. The investigation was conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - Office of the Inspector General
Further Information:
Case #: CR 07-00614 JW
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Joshua Eaton at (415) 436-6958 or by email at Josh.Eaton@usdoj.gov.