Pellicano Trial: Spurned Lovers, Prostitutes, and Cyber Geeks
Allison Hope Weiner writes on The Huffington Post:
Robert Pfeiffer, a former music executive, testified today that he hired Mr. Pellicano to destroy the life of his ex-girlfriend, Erin Finn. Mr. Pfeiffer told the jury that after he brought a lawsuit against a former employer for wrongful termination, his ex-girlfriend testified against him and on behalf of his ex-employer, saying he'd used drugs while employed.
Telling the jury that he became irrational and obsessive about Ms. Finn and her "betrayal," Mr. Pfeiffer said that he hired Mr. Pellicano to not only get Ms. Finn to recant her testimony about his drug use but to also "discredit her."
Mr. Pfeiffer claimed that Mr. Pellicano not only convinced him to a new lawyer, Alan Weil (who is also coincidentally on the government's witness list), but also got him to file several lawsuits against Ms. Finn, to harass her and to agree to wiretapping her phones. Although Mr. Pfeiffer said that Mr. Pellicano initially referred to his wiretapping of Ms. Finn's phone by code (as in "I've just read something"), Mr. Pellicano ultimately told him directly about the wiretapping and eventually invited him back to his office for a listen.
More
here.
Note: Additional background
here.
-ferg
FBI Links Big Film Names to a Detective
David M. Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner write in The New York Times:
The chairman of Paramount Pictures and a onetime Hollywood superagent had far more direct dealings than they have acknowledged publicly with the celebrity detective at the center of a rapidly expanding wiretapping scandal, according to government evidence.
Brad Grey, Paramount's chairman, told the F.B.I. that he spoke with Anthony Pellicano about two lawsuits in which Mr. Pellicano, a private detective, was working on Mr. Grey's behalf, and that he learned information about his legal opponents directly from Mr. Pellicano. A former employee of Mr. Pellicano, who was charged in February with wiretapping and conspiracy, separately told the F.B.I. that Mr. Grey had met with the detective at least five times.
Publicly, Mr. Grey has said that he was only "casually acquainted" with Mr. Pellicano, and that his lawyers were responsible for hiring and overseeing the detective.
More
here.
McTiernan Jailed in Pellicano Wiretap Case
Ed Pilkington writes in The Guardian:
The director of such blockbuster movies as Die Hard and The Thomas Crown Affair yesterday became the latest casualty of a scandal surrounding a disgraced Los Angeles private detective when he was sentenced to four months in prison for lying to the FBI.
John McTiernan was given the jail term after he admitted last year misleading federal agents investigating the case of Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator charged with setting up illegal wiretaps to pry on several Hollywood celebrities.
McTiernan confessed that he had paid Pellicano $50,000 to bug the phone of the producer of his 2000 film Rollerball, Charles Roven, whom he suspected of undermining him in front of financial backers and studio executives. The director acknowledged that he had lied to the FBI during the course of their investigations, telling agents that he had only called on Pellicano's services to help with his divorce.
McTiernan recently tried to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing through lawyers that when he gave the false information to the FBI he had been exhausted from a long work trip to Asia and from taking antibiotics for a sinus infection. The judge, Dale Fischer, rejected the request, saying he had shown "no remorse, just excuses".
More
here.
Lots of background
here.
Pellicano's Co-Defendants Accused of Supporting Roles in Scheme
Carla Hall writes in The Los Angeles Times:
In the courtroom drama starring Los Angeles private detective Anthony Pellicano, they are the supporting players -- the disgraced cop, the one-time Las Vegas businessman, the former phone company technician and the computer whiz.
It is Pellicano who faces the most counts and casts the biggest shadow over the trial, now in its eighth week. But prosecutors allege that his unlikely posse of co-defendants all played important roles in the elaborate wiretapping and racketeering scheme he is accused of masterminding. Some defendants, prosecutors allege, had bigger parts than others.
Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Mark Arneson is accused of illegally tapping into law-enforcement computer databases to feed Pellicano confidential information for his clients. Arneson has already spent hours on the stand defending himself as a hard-working cop -- only to be filleted later by a prosecutor who painted him as a crooked liar.
More
here.
Back to The Future: Pellicano Witness List Unveiled
Via The Smoking Gun.
Chris Rock, Sylvester Stallone, Farrah Fawcett, Garry Shandling, and Hollywood titans Brad Grey and Michael Ovitz head a list of 127 witnesses that federal prosecutors intend to call at the wiretapping trial of disgraced Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano.
The government witness list, a copy of which you'll find below, was filed today in U.S. District Court in L.A., where a jury has just been picked in the Pellicano case.
Other prosecution witnesses include powerful agents Kevin Huvane and Bryan Lourd; Bert Fields, L.A.'s best-know litigator; and journalists Anita Busch and Bernard Weinraub. Prosecutors are scheduled to deliver their opening statement tomorrow morning in the case against Pellicano, who is accused of operating an illegal wiretapping and information gathering network.
More
here.
Some Charges Dropped in Pellicano Wiretapping Case
An AP newswire article, via The Los Angeles Times, reports that:
A federal judge granted a prosecution request today to dismiss 28 charges against private investigator Anthony Pellicano and a co-defendant.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Saunders said the government made the request because some of the alleged victims weren't available to testify and other counts were redundant.
More than 35 charges remain against Pellicano and former Los Angeles police Sgt. Mark Arneson.
The dropped counts mostly involved wire fraud that authorities had alleged involved Arneson searching law enforcement databases for Pellicano.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer came as prosecutors prepared to end their portion of the trial.
More
here.
Pellicano Gets 15 Years for Wiretapping Scheme
An AP newswire article, via Law.com, reports that:
Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for running a wiretapping scheme that spied on the rich and famous.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer also ordered the 64-year-old Pellicano and two other defendants to forfeit a total of $2 million.
Pellicano showed no emotion when the sentence was read.
"I have taken full and complete responsibility," he said, dressed in a prison-issued green jacket and pants.
The private eye was convicted of a combined 78 counts, including wiretapping, racketeering and wire fraud, in two separate trials earlier this year.
More
here.
Pellicano Trial: Slashed Tires, Ransacked Houses, and Nasty Hollywood Divorces
Allison Hope Weiner writes on The Huffington Post:
Wearing a beautifully tailored dark suit and red tie, actor Keith Carradine testified today about how he'd been wiretapped and harassed by Anthony Pellicano during his divorce from ex-wife, Sandra Carradine. Apparently, after Mr. Carradine split with his wife in 2000, bad things started happening to him. Not only did he find himself in the middle of a nasty, contentious divorce, his ex-wife also started dating Anthony Pellicano.
On top of that, Mr. Carradine testified that his then girlfriend (and now wife), Hayley Dumond, was "aggressively" followed by an unknown man, the tires of her car were slashed and her parents received numerous phone calls and hang-ups in the middle of the night. He got a call from a guy with a bad, fake accent, who offered to help him with his divorce.
More
here.
Pellicano Guilty of Wiretapping
David M. Halbfinger writes in The New York Times:
Anthony Pellicano, the ripped-from-a-pulp-novel private eye who made himself an indispensable fixer for Hollywood stars and moguls, was found guilty in federal court Thursday of racketeering, wiretapping and other charges.
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated nine days before finding Mr. Pellicano, 64, guilty of 76 of the 77 counts against him, mostly in connection with his extensive wiretapping operation, which he used to dig up dirt on business enemies and former spouses of his powerful clients.
The jury also convicted his four co-defendants, among them a former police detective and a retired phone company technician, on a variety of charges.
The verdict, which took Judge Dale S. Fischer a full hour to read, was a resounding victory for the government after six years of investigation.
More
here.
Terry Christensen Sentenced to Three Years in Pellicano Case
Joanna Lin writes in The Los Angeles Times:
A prominent Los Angeles attorney was sentenced today to three years in federal prison and fined $250,000 for conspiring with Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's former wife.
Terry Christensen, 67, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer to three years on supervised release after his prison term. He will remain free pending an appeal.
Christensen was found guilty by a federal jury in August. The former Century City attorney was known for his hardball litigation tactics and represented the Las Vegas casino mogul in 2002 in a contentious child support battle that grabbed tabloid headlines.
Prosecutors said Christensen hired Pellicano to wiretap Kerkorian's former wife, Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, who was seeking $320,000 in monthly child support for her then-4-year-old daughter, to gain an edge in the high-stakes legal battle.
More
here.
FBI Agent Accused of Trying to Help Pellicano
Scott Glover writes in the Los Angeles Times:
A veteran FBI agent has been accused of illegally accessing computers at bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C., in what prosecutors suspect was a failed bid to help Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano defend himself against federal racketeering and wiretapping charges, according to court documents and a source familiar with the case.
Mark T. Rossini, a charismatic and popular agent who once worked in the bureau's press office, was charged Monday with criminally accessing FBI computers on five occasions from January through July of last year, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Each of the charges is a misdemeanor.
Rossini allegedly was accessing the computers to find information that may have been helpful to Pellicano, who was tried and convicted of wiretapping and racketeering earlier this year in Los Angeles, said the source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
More
here.
Hollywood Director Charged in Pellicano Wiretap Case
Via The Smoking Gun.
In the latest fallout from the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping investigation, director John McTiernan ("Die Hard," "Predator," "The Hunt for Red October") was charged today with lying to FBI agents probing the disgraced private eye's rogue operation.
In a criminal information, McTiernan, 55, was charged with making false statements to the bureau during an interview last month. Prosecutors contend that McTiernan lied when he denied knowledge about a wiretap placed on the telephone of Hollywood producer Charles Roven ("Three Kings," "Batman Begins").
The information, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges that McTiernan, had actually "hired and paid" Pellicano to bug Roven and that the two men discussed information obtained from that wiretap. The criminal charge does not specify when the wiretap occurred or why it was ordered by McTiernan, who co-produced 2002's "Rollerball" with Roven.
More
here.
Three Charged With Wiretapping, Racketeering
Robert Lemos writes on SecurityFocus:
A federal grand jury indicted private investigator Anthony Pellicano and two associates for the alleged illegal use of law enforcement data and wiretapping using a custom software program, prosecutors announced on Monday.
The 110-count indictment charges Pellicano and his associates with creating a criminal enterprise in which the private detective allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to police officers to provide him with confidential law enforcement information on numerous individuals. In addition, the indictment charges Pellicano and the two associates--a software developer and a telecommunications engineer--with creating a program known as Telesleuth in 1995 and using it as early as 1997 to wiretap such people as Herbalife co-founder Mark Hughes, actor Sylvester Stallone and journalist Anita Busch.
Thug Life: Anthony Pellicano Trial Reveals His Ways And Means
Andrew Murr writes on Newsweek.com:
With an office on Sunset Boulevard and a well-advertised baseball bat in his trunk, Anthony Pellicano honed a reputation as the gumshoe to the Hollywood stars. Over 20 years, the private eye cultivated a client list that ranged from Tinseltown A-listers like one-time superagent Mike Ovitz and actor Chris Rock to top divorce attorneys and business tycoons. He burnished an image as a high-tech audio surveillance whiz with an edge that was part Sicilian menace, part confidential servant to the showbiz elite.
But his federal trial on wiretapping, bribery and conspiracy charges, which opened earlier this month, is putting a major dent in that carefully nurtured image. The trial is exposing methods of intimidation more reminiscent of skid row than the silver screen—ranging from telephone threats to amateurish harassment of adversaries on the streets. His behavior with some clients seems equally bad, looking less like gallant Philip Marlowe and more like a grifter with money problems, willing to leech off vulnerable clients, such as a divorcing woman who forked over nearly $1 million to him, including her diamond-and-pearl earrings.
More
here.
The Pellicano Wiretap Files Revisted: Kerkorian
An AP newswire article, via SFGate.com, reports that:
While Kirk Kerkorian was embroiled in a bitter child-support battle, his lawyer was receiving information gained during suspected illegal wiretaps of the billionaire's ex-wife, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The revelation came from secret recordings that Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano, indicted last year on unlawful wiretapping charges, made of his own telephone conversations with Kerkorian attorney Terry Christensen, The New York Times reported.
More
here.
Background
here,
here,
here, and
here.
New Charges in Pellicano Wiretapping Case
An AP newswire article, via The Boston Globe, reports that:
A former phone company employee acquitted in September of perjury has been indicted by a federal grand jury on similar charges stemming from the wiretapping case against Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano.
The grand jury returned the three-count indictment against Joann Wiggan, 52, on Nov. 22 but it wasn't released until Tuesday by the U.S. attorney's office. If convicted of the three perjury counts, Wiggan faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.
An arraignment has yet to be scheduled.
Previous updates
here,
here, and
here.
More
here.
L.A. Lawyer Nailed in Wiretapping of MGM Boss's Ex-Wife
Wow -- not sure how I missed this one.
Via The Smoking Gun.
A powerful Los Angeles lawyer was indicted today [15 February 2006] on federal charges that he conspired with disgraced Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano to wiretap the telephone of the ex-wife of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian.
Attorney Terry Christensen, 65, was named today in a superceding indictment charging him with conspiracy and interception of wire communications, both felonies.
More
here.
