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Updated 17 minutes ago
A Unity man hopes to avoid home confinement when a judge sentences him Monday for impersonating a Secret Service agent, according to court documents.
Christopher DiIorio, 54, pleaded guilty in November to using fraudulent official seals. He will appear before U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer in the federal courthouse in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Federal sentencing guidelines, based on his criminal record and other factors, recommend up to 6 months in prison or, alternatively, 3 years of probation with part of that time on home confinement or at a community confinement center, such as Renewal Inc.
He also faces a recommended fine of $500 to $9,500.
The judge should consider probation with any confinement because DiIorio operates two businesses — one that cleans pet waste off of people's lawns and another that does home delivery of dog food and toys and provides a dog walking service, defense lawyer William Difenderfer wrote in court documents.
“As a result of his offense conduct and the pending case, both businesses have suffered a significant loss of customers and sales,” Difenderfer wrote. “If Mr. DiIorio is sentenced to imprisonment, both businesses will likely be a total loss.”
DiIorio originally claimed to be a Secret Service agent on an online dating site, apparently believing that cleaning up pet excrement wasn't glamorous enough to attract a mate, federal prosecutors claim.
He took it a step further by finding an online site that provided him with fake credentials to back up his claim, prosecutors said.
He used the fake ID to get a discount at a hotel and tried to use it again when Reserve police pulled him over for a busted taillight in July, prosecutors said. Police took a picture of the identification and notified the Secret Service.
In a subsequent interview during his arrest, DiIorio told investigators “he was trying to make the officer feel that he fit in with law enforcement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Hull said during DiIorio's plea hearing.
Brian Bowling is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-1218 or bbowling@tribweb.com.
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