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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Plea deal imminent in child porn case

Part-time Italian-language professor Diego Fasolini is set to appear in federal court Tuesday, allowing his counsel to update the court on the progress of the professor’s plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Fasolini, 42, his lawyer, Shawn Moore, and the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case, David Kent, have been attempting to settle the case without a trial since the middle of November, but have yet to strike a deal.

Fasolini was arrested in October after police found more than 100,000 images of child pornography on an external hard drive that Fasolini handed over to Columbian College Office of Technology Services for repair.

Moore said in a December hearing that a plea deal will benefit Fasolini, as the Italian-national would “likely lose” if the case went to trial.

Moore has previously declined to comment on the nature of the plea deal and it is unknown if Tuesday’s hearing will bring the affair to a close.

Fasolini has been living under electronic surveillance since Nov. 12, when he was released from jail under the condition that he does not access “child porn or porn of any kind,” Magistrate Judge Alan Kay ruled.?

It would be “ugly and?fatuitous?for you to in any way log onto any of those sites, which you now know are prohibited,” Kay told Fasolini during the Nov. 12 hearing.

Fasolini is currently suspended from the University pending the outcome of the case. He was fired from George Mason University – where he taught Italian – shortly after news of his arrest broke.

Fasolini will appear in District Court Feb. 1, at 1:45 p.m.

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