Informant's Fire Brings Shadowy Tale

Mohamed Alanssi screams after setting himself afire outside the White House. (AP)

A law enforcement source confirmed last week that Alanssi was paid a "relatively" big sum of money.

Alanssi, however, said he did not regard the $100,000 as a final payment. "I am not crazy to destroy my life for these tips," he said.

On Nov. 9, he faxed a seven-page, handwritten note marked "Top Urgent" to FBI agent Fuller, demanding $5 million and threatening to sue the bureau for $20 million if he did not get it.

"It is not unusual at all for people to have inflated ideas about the value of their information," Brandon said. "This is fairly common in an area in which there is not only national but world attention, that is, countering terrorism. . . . One of the things I know my old colleagues have faced since 9/11 has been a steady stream of people wanting to sell them information, many of whom are interested in making money."

Alanssi said he used some of the $100,000 to rent a home in Wappingers Falls in Upstate New York, expecting that he could eventually persuade his family to join him. He also bought $25,000 in furniture for the home and paid back loans.

Stories in Dispute

Alanssi said the FBI offered to help him get a start in a small business, and he decided to buy a dry cleaning store in Beacon, N.Y., not far from Wappingers Falls. He said that he used $25,000 of his FBI money as a down payment and that the FBI agreed to pay the remaining $49,000 for the business in installments of $3,000 a month.

But troubles soon followed. Alanssi said that he got sick from the dry cleaning chemicals and that the FBI stopped paying the installments after two months.

Alicia V. Rivera, who had owned the business, Friendly Dry Cleaners, disputed that account. Rivera said that Alanssi offered to buy her store by paying off her credit card debt of $13,000 and that he said he would keep her on as an employee. She said she signed a contract in September 2003 calling for Alanssi to pay her in monthly installments. She denied that he gave her a $25,000 down payment.

Rivera, an immigrant from Peru, said Alanssi quickly fired her, even though he didn't know how to run the dry cleaning machine. He did not pay the installments or the building rent, she said, forcing her to take him to court. In June, he signed the title back to her.

But before he did so, she said, he begged her for $1,000 to pay for prescription drugs and she gave him the money.

"He requested money from my wife, and it's crazy, because he owed us money," said her husband, Levy Rivera. "She gave him $1,000 because he was crying."

In his interviews with The Post, Alanssi disclosed that he had written two bad checks to repay a loan and that this was reported to the Beacon police. When FBI agents got wind of this, Alanssi said, they berated him and "forced" him to plead guilty to federal bank fraud charges in June. According to the docket in that case, which is before Judge Jack B. Weinstein, a sealed document was entered Oct. 12, the day before Alanssi's scheduled sentencing. The docket does not state which side filed the sealed document, which is unusual. And the outcome of the case is unclear.

Alanssi said the FBI found lawyer Lawrence F. Ruggiero to act as his defense attorney in the case. Ruggiero declined to comment when contacted by a reporter.

Alanssi said he felt uncomfortable in New York because of his FBI work and in June accepted the bureau's suggestion that he move to Northern Virginia. He said that the FBI gave him $1,700 to buy a minivan to move and that it recently began paying his rent at his Falls Church apartment.