Rick Mariano’s Final Blaze Of Glory

News broke yesterday that Rick Mariano had given the feds a “proffer” — which is information that could be used in a court case down the line — after he was convicted of 18 charges.

Now, Mariano’s former lawyer, Nino Tinari, says that he knew nothing about Mariano talking to the feds until Mariano phoned him Monday night and told him, oh, he was fired earlier this month.

Mariano is obviously talking to the feds now in the hopes he can get a more lenient sentence, which makes sense. But when he walked alone into the office of federal prosecutors on April 6 to give them their “proffer” — seriously, where did this word come from? I don’t have access to the OED anymore — Thomas Bergstrom was appointed his attorney without even knowing it.

Now that’s the kind of job I want. I kind of dig this blogging thing, but if I can represent a guy without having to be there and without even knowing it, no wonder all my friends from college are going to law school! (Bergstrom, you may remember, helped get ex-Penn professor Tracy McIntosh, who was convicted of sexual assault, 11 1/2 to 23 months of house arrest.)

I’m liking this new Mariano tactic. If you’re going to go down, you might as well go down in a blaze of glory. Hell, tell the feds whatever the hell you want: implicate Cardinal Rigali in the City Hall corruption scandal, tell the feds John Street runs a puppy mill, say Johnny Doc has been hunting feral cats for sport and that Ed Rendell deals crystal meth on the side. I mean, what do you have to lose?

Mariano kept secrets from his lawyer - then fired him [Daily News]