Now the Orange County Register reports what he actually did and for whom:
An FBI agent who has since resigned threatened to initiate a federal investigation into an individual who owed his friend money, according to court records. Peter H. Norell Jr. agreed to plead guilty March 7 to a misdemeanor count of illegally accessing a government agency computer three times in August and September 2005, according to a plea agreement filed Friday. The criminal activity started in Norell's office on Aug. 23, 2005, when he intentionally used an FBI computer to search for information about a person (identified as only "T.S.") who owed a debt to his friend, according to the filing. The agent again accessed the computer on Aug. 29 and Sept. 2 to get information about the individual, and then confronted him at his home on Sept. 16, 2005, according to the filing. "Although Norell never intended to and never did initiate a legitimate FBI investigation into T.S., Norell threatened to initiate an FBI investigation into T.S. if T.S. did not repay the debt,'' according to the plea agreement. Norell also threatened "T.S." in multiple phone calls, the filing says, and "T.S." eventually paid a portion of the debt to Norell's friend.
