Mark Zelinsky, 57, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Court Judge James Ware in San Jose following a December 2007 guilty plea to a single felony count by Zelinsky.
In his plea, Zelinsky admitted to being employed at Ames in August 2005 and using a NASA computer to download child pornography off of the Internet. He admitted to possessing more than 600 images of child pornography, including multiple images that depicted sadistic or masochistic conduct, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Zelinsky is the second former Ames employee to be in federal court on child pornography charges within the last several weeks. In February, Stockton resident Ernst John Rohde, 63, pleaded guilty to downloading thousands of images of child pornography on both his home computer and his NASA computer. Rohde was employeed at Ames as a contract employee. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 25.
