Updated  June 30, 2006


clickJune 30, 2006: Retired LAPD detective Mark Arneson's career ended with the Anthony Pellicano indictment. Arneson allegedly took bribes from Pellicano to tap into confidential police data-bases. For nearly 20 years he served in the Vice and Homicide Squads. And it's the prospect of broader wrongdoing on his part -- spanning other cases -- that sources say has the LAPD worried. There is currently a civil lawsuit against Arneson for allegedly sending and innocent man, Harold Hall, to jail for 19 years. LAPD Internal Affairs has investigated Arneson's conduct several times and in 1993 a judgement was won against him for an unlawful search. It appears that the LAPD is actively investigating Arneson and those he was involved with now.

clickclickJune 28, 2006: U.S. District Court Judge Dale Fischer in Los Angeles unsealed three search warrants that investigators used to raid Anthony Pellicano's detective agency and seize evidence over four years ago. The first warrant, on Nov. 19, 2002, covered records that could illuminate Mr. Pellicano's involvement in threats that summer against Anita Busch, a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, and Ned Zeman, a writer for Vanity Fair; both were working on articles about the actor Steven Seagal's possible ties to organized-crime figures. When investigators found explosives and firearms in a safe in Mr. Pellicano's office, they went back two days later with a warrant for more evidence of violations of explosives laws. A few days later, the warrants show, Ms. Busch told the F.B.I. that she had discovered, in repeated calls to the phone company about trouble on her lines, that her phones had been tapped for months, and that the phone company could not explain the taps. On Jan. 14, 2003, the F.B.I. returned to Mr. Pellicano's offices specifically combing through his files, computers and other equipment for all wiretapping evidence. In a January 2003 affidavit, Ornellas said he had spoken to an agent who had participated in the earlier search and was told that nothing was taken from the audio lab at Pellicano's offices. "Moreover," Ornellas wrote, "a number of computers located within the audio lab were not searched or seized, as the searching agents in their discretion determined that the items to be seized pursuant to the initial warrant … were unlikely to be found in that portion of the premises."


clickJune 27, 2006: The Los Angeles entertainment legal community has gotten a wake up call from the Anthony Pellicano investigation. Though many attorneys say that the national spotlight on the lawyer-investigator working relationship has done little to change how the entertainment industry uses P.I.s, others think that lawyers will now have increased supervision of their investigators activities. Attorney Larry Feldman says "The lesson of Pellicano is that lawyers have to control the investigators they hire. You can't expect to turn a blind eye and expect to get away with it."


clickJune 26, 2006: Confidential F.B.I. records show that the Anthony Pellicano scandal's tentacles have extended beyond show-business figures to reach people prominent in the rarified worlds of fine art and classical music. Among the government's most important witnesses, the F.B.I. records suggest, are Adam D. Sender, a prominent collector of contemporary art and a wealthy hedge-fund manager, and Jacqueline A. Colburn, an ex-wife of a renowned Los Angeles donor to the performing arts, Richard D. Colburn, who died in 2004. They each listened repeatedly to wiretap recordings according to F.B.I. summaries. With prosecutors still struggling to produce the actual recordings they say Mr. Pellicano made of other people's conversations, witnesses like Mr. Sender and Ms. Colburn who can testify that they listened to such intercepted calls could be crucial to the government's case. Mr. Sender does not directly implicate Bert Fields in any wrongdoing in the F.B.I. summaries, and says he met with Mr. Fields only once, in late March 2001. In that meeting, Mr. Sender said, Mr. Fields urged him to hire a private investigator, and suggested Mr. Pellicano. "According to Fields, Pellicano employed 'unorthodox methods,' " but "got the job done," Mr. Sender told the agents.


clickJune 26, 2006: For all the criticism of the government's case against Anthony Pellicano by defense attorneys, their complaints have not convinced U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer, who has denied several courtroom challenges to the investigation and the evidence it has yielded. Law enforcement sources and others who have glimpsed the government's case contend that authorities have ample proof of wiretapping, witness intimidation and other crimes.


clickJune 26, 2006: Both Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were allegedly blackmailed by the Enquirer, Anthony Pellicano's tabloid of choice, according to his former legman, Paul Baressi.


clickJune 13, 2006: A profile of another well-known Hollywood P.I., John Nazarian. Things have cooled down in Nazarian's line of work since the Pellicano indictment. "I said to the lawyers, all the good wire guys, they've all gone to Chicago for the summer. Anybody who goes out and wiretaps and does bugging now, they've got to be out of their minds." Nazarian said he didn't bug because "I'm too old to go to jail." As a former cop, he insisted he knew how to push the boundaries without going over the line. "Some of the stuff Pellicano did was overboard," Nazarian said. "It was like putting too much garlic in the sauce. He didn't need to do that."


clickclickJune 13, 2006: One recording the government does have in the Anthony Pellicano invstigation looks like a juicy one. The recording concerns the divorce of Los Angeles private equity billionaire Alec Gores from his wife Lisa in 2001. Gores admitted to hiring Pellicano in 2000 to investigate whether his wife was cheating on him with his younger brother, Tom, another private equity billionaire. Pellicano’s wiretaps — which reportedly recorded a conversation between Lisa and brother Tom just hours after they had met at the Beverly Hills Hotel — apparently confirmed Alec’s suspicions. Prosecutor Saunders alleged the recordings include "at least one" illegally intercepted conversation as well as "hundreds of calls" in which Pellicano allegedly spoke to clients about wiretaps. Saunders also said there was evidence from dozens of witnesses alleging that Pellicano had engaged in wiretapping. Saunders did not provide details on the techniques used by the FBI to decode the encrypted recordings but acknowledged that the methods were not ones that the government would want to share in open court.


clickJune 12, 2006: Defense attorneys in a Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case scolded federal prosecutors on Monday for not turning over evidence. Part of the delay has come from difficulty decrypting audio files made by Pellicano of his telephone conversations with clients and others, prosecutors said. If defense attorneys "are so eager to get the tapes decrypted, the one man who has the password is sitting right over there," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders, referring to Pellicano.


clickclickJune 11, 2006: In an unmonitored jailhouse phone interview with the Los Angeles Times despite his no-bail status, Anthony Pellicano indicated that the feds should stop investigating him and go after Al Queda. "Chasing terrorists is what the FBI is supposed to be doing. I've got to tell you, if instead of keeping me behind bars here, they gave me the job of finding Osama bin Laden, I guarantee you I would find him." Pellicano also insisted that he'd never rat out anyone and that of course he was innocent.

clickJune 11, 2006: Pellicano is the kind of private eye Hollywood invented. "He's like a character, very minor character in 'The Sopranos.' He's a pain in the ass," says Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart. Anthony Pellicano first made his name in Los Angeles helping make drug charges against automaker John DeLorean disappear even when the feds had DeLorean on tape with cocaine.  Then, after the overdose death of comedian John Belushi, Pellicano helped lawyers get reduced charges and prison time for the woman who admitted giving the fatal injection. "He is a B movie," Bart adds. "He's sort of a jerk, really." Bart explains that people hire Pellicano for the purpose of intimidation. "He became a scary figure," Bart says.

clickJune 7, 2006: Anthony Pellicano had the checks run on George Mueller, an investigator with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, and five others connected to the probe of a Frenchman named Christopher Rocancourt, prosecutors said in court papers. While investigating Rocancourt in the mid-1990s, Mueller said, Rocancourt called him to boast of a contact with access to confidential law-enforcement information. "Knowing that a suspect in a case that I'm tracking has my personal information is pretty alarming," Mueller said. Authorities in Los Angeles were investigating Rocancourt in connection with several alleged crimes, including bribing federal workers to provide him with a phony U.S. passport. Rocancourt pleaded guilty in March 2004 to passport fraud conspiracy in Los Angeles County Superior Court and was sentenced to five years in prison.

clickJune 5, 2006: John McTiernan is set to helm the new action film, Deadly Exchange, the first directing deal he's signed since pleading guilty and agreeeing to a plea bargain in the Anthony Pellicano scandal. McTiernan is preparing the film for a scheduled start later this summer in Shreveport, Louisiana.


clickJune 2, 2006: Pellicano claimed the government used Sandra Carradine, former wife of actor Keith Carradine, to gather a "fountain of information" about his legal strategy during jail visits last year. Federal Judge Dale Fischer found no grounds to support Gruel's assertion that agents had violated Pellicano's attorney-client privilege by enlisting his ex-girlfriend to extract information. She also said that prosecutors can use all the evidence gathered in a search of Pellicano's offices and that the officers never needed to describe all the crimes that that believed Pellicano may have committed or all of the things that they hoped to find.


clickMay 31, 2006: Two Los Angeles law firms recently raised their first-year associate salaries while facing key partner departures and a federal criminal probe into whether lawyers engaged in illegal wiretapping with Anthony Pellicano. Both Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger, whose top rainmaker, Bertram Fields, has said he is a subject of the criminal investigation and Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro, whoxe managing partner, Terry Christensen, is the only lawyer to be indicted in the wiretapping probe, have decifed to raise associates pay suddenly. But the managing partners of both firms said their decisions had nothing to do with either the investigation or their recent departures.

clickMay 30, 2006: Aging seductress, Linda Fiorentino, has gotten herself involved in the seedy world of Anthony Pellicano. Shady "pit bull" attorney, Marty Singer, reportedly double crossed her when she hired him to sue former porn director, Sidney Kiwitt, for a deal that went south. Singer also allegedly represented the director of the failed film project and – while managing to get him a compensatory award – reportedly left the Fiorentino high and dry without remuneration. Fiorentino became obsessed with the idea that Singer might get indicted in the Pellicano scandal. In her effort to dig up dirt on Singer, Fiorentino reportedly befriended the Pelican’s ex-wife, Kat Pellicano. Kat claimed that Fiorentino and she fell out when the actress showed up at her home with a video camera and began suspiciously taping her children and then attempted to hack into their personal computer in an effort to find damning info on Singer. Kat and Fiorentino only reunited a few months ago in a deal around Kat's new tell-all memoir "Listening In." Fiorentino has unofficially attached herself to play Kat in a potential movie to be based on the same project. Source reports that Kat Pellicano now has reservations about the idea of Fiorentino depicting her in a movie because she reportedly exclaimed, “Her [Fiorentino’s] ass got f---ing fat!”

clickMay 26, 2006: Convicted fraudster Daniel Nicherie who was charged with hiring Pellicano to wiretap Israeli businessman Ami Shafrir believes he, too, may have been a victim of Pellicano. According to Jan Tucker, a private investigator working for Nicherie's legal team, Nicherie and his family received death threats in 2000. Among them, says Tucker, was a hand grenade found under the hood of a car belonging to Nicherie's mother. Pellicano offered to negotiate with the threat-makers. Pellicano said they would leave Nicherie alone for $200,000, according to Tucker, who suggests Pellicano led Nicherie to believe an Israeli crime syndicate was behind the shakedown. Tucker now believes that Pellicano was part of the whole plan to extort $200,000 from his client.

clickMay 26, 2006: The Pellicano saga as detailed by a British newspaper.


clickMay 24, 2006: Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles conducting a wide-sweeping investigation of illegal wiretapping have asserted conflict of interest issues involving Terry Christensen, the only lawyer indicted as part of the probe. There's a potential conflict between Robert Shapiro representing a named partner at a firm, Terry Christensen, while at the same time being a partner at the firm because the two interests theoretically could diverge. Another partner, Louis "Skip" Miller (who announced earlier this month that he would be leaving the firm), is representing a potential witness in the wiretapping case, Alec Gores. Christensen denied the conflict issue played a role in Miller's decision to leave the firm.


clickMay 24, 2006: Alexander Proctor's attorney, William S. Pitman, wants everybody to know—especially Proctor's fellow inmates who might be looking for a contract from Anthony Pellicano and friends—that his client hasn't cooperated with the feds: "Alex is the most resolute nonsnitch I've ever met. It's a matter of pride with him. Snitching is against his code of ethics." Pittman states that Proctor dismisses that Pellicano ever ordered a hit on him but he also says that Proctor claims to be innocent of mutltiple drug charges that he had subsequently plead guilty to.

clickclickMay 23, 2006: The Los Angeles Police Department may soon ban officers from moonlighting as private investigators or having a financial stake in detective agencies. A review of state records by the Los Angeles Times last month found dozens of licensees on the LAPD payroll, probably more than 100, but Cmdr. Kenneth Garner, head of the personnel group, said only 16 officers and one civilian employee were licensed as private investigators. This ban is the result of the indictment of former LAPD Detective Mark Arneson on charges of illegally using law enforcement databases to dig up dirt on people for former celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano. Arneson was paid at least $189,000 from his work for Pellicano.

clickMay 23, 2006: Federal prosecutors in the Anthony Pellicano investigation said articles citing FBI interviews with Hollywood power brokers didn't start showing up in the New York Times until after information had been turned over to defense attorneys as part of the pretrial discovery process. Because a protective order may have been violated, the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who leaked the details. "The protective order was materially breached when at least one of the members of the defense team provided material produced by the government to the New York Times," prosecutors said in court documents filed late Monday.

clickclickMay 23, 2006: The real targets in the Anthony Pellicano investigation for federal prosecutors are the fraternity of high-priced lawyers who do Hollywood's business from glass towers in Century City. The powerful businesspeople and stars are just collateral damage in a hunt for the real target: what government lawyers see as corruption in a legal system that is suddenly being policed after decades of neglect. They're following one thread — Pellicano — and it turns out that thread is wound deeply and deeply, through and around this entertainment law community. "To the extent that people in various positions have felt that they were immune from prosecution," said George S. Cardona, the acting United States attorney for the Pellicano case, "hopefully, the case will send to those people the message that they're not immune, and if their conduct is uncovered, they will be prosecuted just like anybody else."


clickMay 22, 2006: Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders said in court on Monday that more charges would be filed in the Anthony Pellicano case, but couldn't give a firm date because of ongoing discussions with the parties involved.

clickMay 20, 2006: In their endless push for fame and fortune, some Hollywood power brokers bought into the character and found a real-life private eye with a dubious reputation. Federal prosecutors now say Anthony Pellicano used wiretaps, threats and blackmail to help lawyers and their clients win high-stakes legal disputes. Other private eyes complain the case has confused fact and fiction about their work while showing how far people in Hollywood expect them to go. ''This has perpetuated the myth that investigators can and will do anything'' if they're paid enough money, said Scott Ross, a private investigator who has worked for legal teams defending Michael Jackson and Robert Blake, among others.

clickMay 19, 2006: If Brad Grey looses his current legal motion seeking to quash his testimony in a lawsuit by Scary Movie director, Bo Zenga against LAPD, Pellicano and Detective Mark Arneson, he could wind up testifying in depositions about his involvement in Pellicano’s wiretapping — and invoking his Fifth Amendment privileges.

clickMay 16, 2006: Crime-show czar Dick Wolf is eyeing the exploits of slimy investigator-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano as an inspiration for "Power," the new TV series he's developing about young hotshot prosecutors going after corrupt Hollywood honchos.  The "Law & Order" creator has brought on board two consultants guaranteed to make sure Pellicano's dirty tricks are portrayed with dead-on accuracy - namely, reporters Anita Busch and John Connolly, both hapless victims of The Pelican's heavy-handed tactics.


clickMay 15, 2006: Pellicano became so wrapped up in the movies that he lost it at the movies. Even with all his delusions of cine-grandeur, he wasn't locked up, or consigned to some park bench. No, he was the go-to guy in Hollywood, the man who made problems go away -- the "sin eater," as his many grateful employers dubbed him.

clickMay 11, 2006: Bert Fields close friend, Susan Estrich, slams the Los Angeles Times for their complete lack of evidence in stories that they've run connected to Fields and the Anthony Pellicano investigation. She does not consider the Los Angeles Times to be either bright or ethical in the journalism that it has been praticing. She accuses the newspaper  of actual malice in trying to destroy people's reputations.

clickMay 11, 2006: Comedian Mike Myers had hired Anthony Pellicano in 2000 to dig up dirt on film director Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer in a nasty legal battle with Universal Studios. Myers and his attorney at the time, Marty Singer, declined to confirm or deny their hiring of Pellicano.

clickMay 10, 2006: Summaries written by F.B.I. agents of their interviews with Sandra Carradine, Anthony Pellicano's old girlfriend turned government witness, describe her accounts of Pellicano not only ordering a mob hit on Alexander Proctor but a series of threats against government investigators and others. According to those summaries, Ms. Carradine heard Mr. Pellicano speak of his ties to organized-crime figures in Chicago. They also say she heard him claim to have murdered people in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles, and make threatening statements about the law-enforcement officials pursuing him.  In May 2005, Mr. Pellicano railed against the F.B.I. agents who were searching a storage unit in which he had locked away a computer and a cache of disks, Ms. Carradine told Special Agent Stanley E. Ornellas. Mr. Ornellas wrote: "Pellicano said if he could, he would douse 'them' with gasoline and set them on fire and after they were burning, he would pour more gasoline on them." Mr. Pellicano also threatened Daniel A. Saunders, the assistant United States attorney in charge of the case, during at least two of Ms. Carradine's jailhouse visits. She said that on Oct. 3 Mr. Pellicano had described seeing "images of being in a courtroom and lunging across a table towards Saunders." And Ms. Carradine added that on Oct. 6 Mr. Pellicano had vowed one day to "take Saunders's life like he took mine," according to Mr. Ornellas's notes. In the same F.B.I. interview, Ms. Carradine expressed concern for her safety once Mr. Pellicano learned of her cooperation, according to the summary.

clickMay 10, 2006: Ross Johnson wonders why Hollywood was ever scared of Anthony Pellicano: "Despite all his posturing with bimbos and outright lying to reporters about his prowess with a Louisville Slugger, Pellicano has always been a punk from Chicago who, as attorney Stephen Yagman is fond of saying, 'escaped his punkdom and moved to L.A., where nobody knew he was a punk.'"

clickMay 10, 2006: Nikki Finke demonstrates that the Los Angeles Times knowingly did not reveal key facts as they cherry picked the truth in their recent story about Cindy Garvey's claim against studio chief Ron Meyer, who allegedly hired Anthony Pellicano  in 1988 to intimidate her into withdrawing claims of spousal abuse.

clickMay 10, 2006: Pellicano was aware that all his mail was intercepted and read by the Bureau of Prisons personel and he warned people that he corresponded with from prison. He was quite selective in what he wrote to another P.I. in some letters that his one time legman, Paul Baressi, has obtained and distributed to the press.

clickMay 10, 2006: Bert Fields' criminal defense attorney, George Keker, railed against Vanity Fair's portrayal of his client but doesn't have anything bad to say about the recent LA Times piece about the "rise and fall" of Field's legal career. The Vanity Fair article detailed Field's long-term, close and mutually beneficial relationship with Anthony Pellicano. Fields as a frequent client of Pellicano, knew not to make the mistake of talking with the P.I. on the phone since the detective's propensity to tape conversations was widely known. As a result, prosecutors have not been able to indict Fields as easily as they did with celebrity attorney Terry Christensen earlier this year.


clickclickMay 9, 2006: Federal prosecutors said that Anthony Pellicano recently conspired with known mobsters in Chicago to put a prison "hit" out on Alexander Proctor, the man he hired to threaten reporter anita Busch. " 'If something happens to Proctor, he couldn't testify against me,' " U.S Attorney Saunders quoted Pellicano as saying to his ex-girlfriend Sandra Carradine, who had become a co-operating government witness unbeknownst to Pellicano at the time he had told her the information.

clickMay 9, 2006: The FBI is currently analyzing audio tapes made by tabloid reporter Jim Mitteager of Anthony Pellicano in January 1994. According to the tapes he seems to have singled out certain celebs, like Oprah Winfrey, for special scrutiny. Pellicano was apparently seeking personal contact information on celebs and supermarket-publication types from Mitteager and was willing to pay $1,000 for the information. Pellicano's targeted celebrities names — along with those of intimates who allegedly dished on them — show up on the tapes. Alleged tabloid sources, included Winfrey's niece Alisha; Paula Abdul's unnamed massage therapist; Cher's daughter, Chastity Bono; Al Pacino's father, Sal; Sylvester Stallone's mother, Jackie; an unnamed assistant of Kirk Douglas; an unnamed girlfriend of Magic Johnson, and "insider" informants on Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg.

clickMay 7, 2006: The toppling of Bert Field's legal empire began in November 2003, Fields broke the news to his collegues that he had been questioned by federal investigators about his use of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano in his legal practice. Fields also told them that he was the subject of a wiretap investigation, that he could be charged in Pellicano's alleged illicit wiretapping and spying. Since that time his once legendary firm has started to fall part with named partners leaving and the remaining attorneys hiring full time counsel just to defend them against the onslaught of new accusations.

clickclickMay 5-6, 2006: Private investigator Anthony Pellicano likely knows things about Universal Pictures president Ron Meyer that could embarrass the studio chief if they were to come out. Pellicano may have also used his strong arm tactics to assist Meyers in the past. When an ex-girlfriend of Meyer accused him of spousal assault in 1988, she received a threatening phone call from a man telling her not to pursue charges. When a former neighbor of Meyer had not repaid a $300,000 loan to Meyer, that man was threatened through his attorney by Pellicano in a phone conversation that the FBI now has that was recorded. Howard Weitzman, who frequently employed Pellicano and was Meyer's attorney at the time, says that Pellicano was probably hired at the time to help do things like "interview witnesses."

clickMay 4, 2006: Private eye Anthony Pellicano's former wife of 20 years is shopping a book. Kat Pellicano, who has testified before a grand jury in her ex's wiretapping case, promises she'll talk about his famous clients in her memoir, "Listening In." Vanity Fair writer John Connolly, who has recently clashed with Kat, says: "I would suggest that whoever publishes her book do some serious vetting."


clickMay 3, 2006: The Los Angeles Times has never been known for aggressive coverage of Hollywood's dirty laundry, but its out-to-lunch performance in the Anthony Pellicano case has Tinseltown folks scratching their heads. The paper has been scooped regularly in its own back yard by the New York Times. "This is the biggest scandal in the history of the entertainment business, and the L.A. Times has completely dropped the ball," said an insider. "Is it just that they are lame, or have important people leaned on them to lay off?" The N.Y. Times, which has been leaked transcripts of FBI interviews, has detailed Pellicano's relationships with CAA founder Michael Ovitz, lawyers Bert Fields and Dennis Wasser, Paramount boss Brad Grey and Universal chief Ron Meyer. The L.A. Times hasn't broken any stories. There was a rumor the paper was hamstrung because it had a relationship with Pellicano. The paper informally has denied hiring Pellicano.

clickclickMay 3, 2006: Pellicano has lost about 30 pounds since he's been jailed on February 6, 2006 on a no-bail hold in the Metropolitan Detention Center, and looks like he could croak at any minute. His mail and phone calls are heavily monitored yet federal prosecutors have relayed a whole slew of alleged jailhouse threats from Pellicano since he was arrested on possession of illegal explosives in November 2002 including against Vanity Fair editor John Connolly.

clickMay 3, 2006: In the acrimonious divorce five years ago of Jude Greene from now dead multimillionaire financier Leonard Green, Jude remembers, "One of the first attorneys I hired came right out and said, 'Dennis Wasser just told me down at the courthouse that Pellicano's on your case,' " Green said, recalling the lawyer's cautionary advice: "You need to get a cross-cut shredder because he's going to be going through your garbage and he's going to be checking your background. And you'd better get your house swept because your phones are probably tapped as well." Jude's ex-husband had also hired Pellicano himself earlier in the couple's seperation. She was physically threatened at that time by man that she now believes to be Pellicano. Jude had even received a telephone call that she took as a death threat. "Keep your mouth shut, for your sake and for your family's sake — or else," the caller said and then hung up, according to police and court records. At one point her attorneys were told that they could pursue settlement with either the law firm of Jaffe and Clemens or Pellicano. Jude Green had testified before the federal grand jury in 2003 and her tires were slashed two days later. She says of her run ins with Pellicano, "I'm not afraid of him, and I'm not afraid of the bully lawyers and the judges…. And I'm going to go to my grave knowing I told the truth."

clickMay 2, 2006: Kat Pellicano, one of Anthony Pellicano's ex-wives claims that she ran his shady business and sat in on meetings with celebrities including Michael Jackson and others during their twenty year marriage.

clickMay 2, 2006: Attorney Louis "Skip" Miller is leaving Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro. He helped start the prominent Century City law firm in 1988 with Terry Christensen. Miller's departure is due to the scandal surrounding the indictment of longtime partner Terry N. Christensen in the Anthony Pellicano wiretap scandal.


clickclickMay 2, 2006: Troubled by leaks to the media, a federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders, said that he would delay filing grand jury transcripts and other crucial documents with the defense in the case of the indicted Hollywood private eye, Anthony Pellicano, because he fears the material will ''end up on the front page.'' Although the U.S. Justice Department had launched an investigation to determine who leaked confidential FBI reports from the case to The New York Times,Judge Dale Fischer said she was not convinced there had been a violation of her protective order limiting access to the information to prosecutors, investigators, defense attorneys and their clients. Fischer added however that prosecutors were under no particular timetable for turning over grand jury testimony and other evidence, including prior statements by witnesses. Attorney Carmen Trutanich asked Fischer to keep search warrant affidavits sealed on behalf of her clients, Steven Segal and John Rottger. Federal authorities, delayed plans to unseal three of six searches conducted by FBI agents at Pellicano's Sunset Boulevard offices and one of the private investigator's storage lockers.


clickMay 2, 2006: A good brief profile of Anthony Pellicano's career appearing in his hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

clickMay 1, 2006: Ron Meyers, the president of Universal likes to visit Anthony Pellicano in prison and makes no apologies. The only heavy hitter known to have visited Mr. Pellicano behind bars was Mr. Meyer. Meyer has been friendly with Pellicano for at tleast fifteem years. Mr. Pellicano often sent cards and gifts to the Meyers. Mr. Meyer acknowledged to the F.B.I. that he had once retained Mr. Pellicano to collect a debt from a neighbor. In 1997, Mr. Meyer lent $300,000 to Bilal Baroody, a businessman with homes in Malibu and Spain. According to the F.B.I., Mr. Meyer later mentioned this to Mr. Pellicano, who offered to collect the debt, saying he had "guys in Spain." Mr. Meyer assumed Mr. Pellicano would find him and "pester" him, but Mr. Pellicano "never discussed the methods he would employ." Mr. Meyer wrote a check for Mr. Pellicano's $25,000 retainer, and also offered to split with him any money collected. On March 15, 1999, prosecutors have charged, Mr. Pellicano had a police source illegally run a criminal background check on Mr. Baroody, who could not be reached for this article. Mr. Meyer told the F.B.I. that he heard nothing more of Mr. Baroody until June 2002, when he received a letter in which his former neighbor promised to repay the debt someday. In early 2003 — after Mr. Pellicano's arrest but before his incarceration — Mr. Meyer told the F.B.I. that he was asked by Bert Fields, a lawyer and a friend, to give money to a trust for Mr. Pellicano's family. Mr. Meyer agreed to help, promising gifts of $20,000 a year for two years. Mr. Meyer urged Mr. Pellicano to "drop a dime" on Mr. Ovitz, according to a person close to the investigation who refused to be identified to avoid angering prosecutors.

clickMay 1, 2006: Steven Seagal and his friend from the Navy Seals, John Rottger both figure prominently in the 11/21/02 search warrant affidavit prepared by FBI Special Agent Stanley Ornellas. Seagal and Rottger were initially major suspects in the threats against journalists Busch and Zeman along with Anthony Pellicano.

clickMay 2006: Los Angeles Magazine named Anthony Pellicano Web Links "Web site of the month" in their May issue. They recommend going to http://sinhablar.com for a crash course on the hot Hollywood topic that is fallen celeb private eye Anthony Pellicano.

clickApril 30, 2006: Brad Grey's name has surfaced in front-page accounts of a federal probe of private eye Anthony Pellicano—the subject of a sweeping federal indictment in February alleging that, among other things, he bugged the Hollywood enemies of Grey and other clients. "We wish it all would just stop," says John Lesher, head of Paramount's specialty film division. True-crime stories likely weren't part of Grey's script for recapturing the glory days of Paramount, Hollywood's oldest studio. "The most important thing ... is the turnaround of the studio," said Grey—who won't discuss Pellicano—in a statement. But now the Affair Pellicano is stealing some spotlight. However, business associates of Grey told NEWSWEEK that they've been advised that the statute of limitations has run out on any possible misconduct related to Pellicano's work on Grey's behalf wiretapping Vincent Zenga, so they aren't worried. Grey, his handlers argue, is a victim of unflattering innuendo and inaccuracies in the media. Pellicano, they add, was really hired by Bert Fields, Grey's lawyer.


clickApril 30, 2006: Bert Fields is refusing to be interviewed now about his invovlement with Anthony Pellicano. Only his spokesperson, Brian Sun is speaking to the press. To charge Fields, prosecutors would likely need taped conversations between the two men or testimony by Pellicano against Fields. Fields has worked with Pellicano since at least the early 1990's on numerous cases. Fields seems to have a very similar work ethic to his incarcerated friend. In a 1989 interview with American Film magazine, Fields issued a warning to his legal opponents. "When somebody does something to one of my clients, I tend to become very angry and turn it into what I call a 'holy war.'" Fields so admired Pellicano that the P.I. appeared in both of his two novels. Written under the pen name D. Kincaid, a high-profile Los Angeles lawyer named Harry Cain is buddies with  another character private investigator Skip Corrigan who uses shady methods to get him valuable information.


clickApril 29, 2006: Federal authorities have begun a criminal investigation into who leaked confidential FBI documents in the probe of private eye Anthony Pellicano in violation of a judge's protective order. The investigation will be conducted by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego because prosecutors and FBI agents in Los Angeles are among those who have access to the compromised information. Attorneys representing Pellicano and six others under indictment in the wiretapping scandal also had been given FBI investigative reports known as "302s" and other documents in the case prior to the leak in the press and they too are under investigation.


clickApril 28, 2006: The FBI has a tape of what may be a 2001 conversation between the then-divorcing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman has entered the picture in the Anthony Pellicano scandal. Bryan Burrough, co-author of the controversial Vanity Fair expose on the incarcerated gumshoe said, "We know Tom Cruise, via his attorney, hired Pellicano on at least two occasions. And it got so bad during the divorce with Nicole Kidman that Nicole widely assumed that she was, in fact, being taped. We don't know that she was. But she would get on the phone during conversations and say, 'Tom, are you listening? Am I saying the right thing?' And eventually, we're told, investigators did find a single tape of her on the telephone. We don't know where that came from."

clickApril 28, 2006: Brad Grey and several former clients, including Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler, as well as a rep for the late Chris Farley, have come forward with claims that Vanity Fair's story on the Anthony Pellicano scandal is inaccurate in describing their relationship to the disgraced private investigator.

clickclickApril 27, 2006: According to LA Indie, Frederick DeMann, Madonna's former manager, stood up for Pellicano at the bond hearing after Pellicano was indicted for illegal weapons possession in 2002. In his letter of support to the court he wrote that, "Anthony Pellicano has been a friend of mine for more than 20 years. In my mind, he is the most upstanding, honest and integrity-filled person I know."

clickApril 27, 2006: Nine more people have filed claims against the cities of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, saying two police officers ran their names though government databases at the behest of indicted private investigator, Anthony Pellicano. Attorney Neville Johnson filed all nine claims. Claims usually are  precursors to lawsuits.

clickApril 27, 2006: Sandra Carradine and her attorney, Peter Knecht, were informed from the get-go in their initial meetings regarding cooperation, that Ms, Carradine was not to provide the government with any information concerning communications between Pellicano and his counsel. In subsequent contacts with Sandra Carradine, Special Agent Ornellas specifically reminded her, on more than one occasion, not to provide him with any information concerning such communications. Ms. Carradine and her attorney concurred that she never had.

clickclickApril 27, 2006: Pellicano's attorney, Steven Gruel, has filed motions claiming that the prosecutors spied on Pellicano while in jail through his girlfiend at the time, Sandra Carradine.


clickclickApril 27, 2006: Nikki Finke was informed that Vanity Fair's contributing editor John Connolly "heard from the U.S. Attorney’s office who told him that they were obligated to inform him that Anthony Pellicano had threatened his safety." Connolly has written about the Pellicano scandal since 1994, including the recent Pellicano expose in Vanity Fair's June issue, Inside Hollywood's Big Wiretap Scandal. Connolly had also just contracted to do a book on Pellicano called "The Sin Eater" for Simon & Schuster. This appears to be Pellicano's third violent threat against a journalist in recent years. Pellicano first threatened Ned Zelman and then Anita Busch. Kat Pellicano has also told Finke that she was misquoted in the recent Pellicano expose in Vanity Fair about such things as Pellicano's wanting to convert to Judaism to please Jewish lawyers including Bert Fields. Kat Pellicano claims that her ex-husband wanted to convert because he "believed in Judaism more than their own faiths."


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April 26, 2006: The latest Vanity Fair Pellicano expose by special correspondent Bryan Burrough and contributing editor John Connolly is far too plentiful and wonderful to properly summarize here. It describes both the outward brazenly criminal acts of the incarcerated P.I. and his inner turmoil. It documents whose snitching now and whose suing. It tabulates the list of Pellicano's A-list bosom buddies. As a sampling, Pellicano so desperately wanted to please Bert Fields that he was going to convert to Judiasm and Fields initiated a charity drive among the Hollywood elite to raise money for Pellicano's children in 2002. **Please go read this article immediately and use it as a rosetta stone for further developments in the case.** Sheesh, even the discriminating Nikki Finke seemed to give her seal of approval on this one.

clickApril 26, 2006: Nikki Finke found out that the name of the "studio president" who contributed money to an effort to raise money for Pellicano's kids when Pellicano was arrested in November 2002 -- even after word of the P.I.'s wiretapping got out, is Universal Studios President/COO Ron Meyer. The "producer" who also contributed is Madonna's one-time manager Freddie DeMann. Attorney Bert Fields spearheaded the fund-raising. There were twenty to thirty people on the list including Michael Ovitz and Jerry Bruckheimer.

clickApril 26, 2006: Dennis M. Wasser, divorce lawyer-to-the-stars who frequently hired the private detective Anthony Pellicano was aware of at least one instance of his illegal wiretapping, an F.B.I. agent has said in a confidential investigative summary seen by The New York Times. Wasser, whose clients have included the actor Tom Cruise and the MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian, is among the most prominent Hollywood figures under scrutiny in the nearly four-year federal investigation of Mr. Pellicano, who was charged in February with wiretapping and conspiracy. Mr. Wasser and Mr. Pellicano could be heard speaking about Mr. Kolodny, a lawyer in an opposing case, on the phone in tape gotten from Pellicano's offices in 2002. What was said on that call revealed "Wasser's knowledge of an illegal wiretap conducted by Anthony Pellicano,"a F.B.I. agent wrote after a follow-up interview in October with Mr. Kolodny. During that interview with the F.B.I., Kolodny  reportedly called Pellicano’s wiretapping “the worst-kept secret in legal circles within Los Angeles.” Kolodny said he urged Wasser not to hire Pellicano, but that Wasser responded that “Pellicano could get anything you needed, [including] ‘tapping phones,’ ‘planting bugs’ and ‘doing cameras.’ ”Another witness who has implicated Mr. Wasser, according to F.B.I. notes, is Sandra Will Carradine, who later became Pellicano's girlfriend. And when Mr. Pellicano asked friends and clients to show up in court for a bail hearing in 2002, Mr. Wasser was one of those who attended.

clickApril 26, 2006: The federal probe into Hollywood gumshoe Anthony Pellicano is nowhere near winding down. A source connected to the investigation says prosecutors have listened to only 25 percent of the hundreds of hours of tapes made by Pellicano -- a fact that will send chills through a Hollywood community desperate to put the case behind it.

clickclickApril 26, 2006: Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case are pointing fingers at each other after confidential FBI memos turned up in news reports. Sources close to the case said the Justice Department and the FBI will soon launch investigations into who leaked memos of interviews with supermarket magnate Ronald W. Burkle, Paramount Pictures head Brad Grey and former Disney president Michael S. Ovitz.  The leaked memos were quoted in two New York Times stories shortly after they were made available to defense lawyers, prosecutors said. U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer had issued an order that the memos be kept confidential. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel A. Saunders, the lead prosecutor on the Pellicano case, notified Fischer that her order was violated a week after the memos were turned over to the defense. Pellicano attorney Steven F. Gruel then fired off a letter to prosecutors, saying he did not appreciate the insinuation that defense lawyers had leaked the memos.

clickApril 25, 2006: Pellicano's lawyer Steven Gruel, for pretrial motions and discovery in his case presently, filed a declaration in Los Angeles federal court stating that Pellicano, who’s been held in the Metropolitan Detention Center as a flight risk since his indictment on February 6, 2006, should be granted a bail hearing immediately on account of “outrageous conduct” by the government in relation to its use of a Pellicano ex-girlfriend as an informant. Gruel also detailed a claim that lead FBI agent Stanley Ornellas has made a series of misrepresentations and omissions that will lead to an upcoming Gruel pretrial motion to get Ornellas and lead prosecutor Daniel Saunders tossed off the case.  Pellicano refused to appear to a subpoena on May 1, 2002 , seven weeks prior to the threat against Anita Busch. The subpoena demanded that Pellicano produce to a grand jury, by May 14, 2002, “any consensual or nonconsensual recordings…of any federal or state law enforcement personnel” in a matter that the Los Angeles Times has previously reported involved the possible Pellicano wiretapping of an unnamed FBI agent.

clickclickclickApril 25, 2006: The famous comedian, Chris Rock, hired Anthony Pellicano when a Hungarian model/Perfect 10, Monika Zsbrita, slapped Rock with a paternity claim in 1999. Rock's publicist, Matt Labov, said that Pellicano, at the time he was retained, had an "excellent reputation" as an investigator and that no one associated with Rock had any idea the private investigator would illegally access police files. The February 2006 indictment accuses Pellicano of using his connections with LAPD detective, Mark Arneson, to illegally run a background check on Zsibrita on July 30, 1999. Zsibrita claims that she was also stalked and her house was broken into at the time. She is intending on filing a lawsuit now against the City of Los Angeles, alleging that her civil rights were violated because her confidential records were turned over to Pellicano. The Hungarian news agencies are even reporting this item!

clickApril 24, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that Patty Glaser, who is herself the subject of whispers in the Anthony Pellicano case, will be the disaster control executive for her fellow law partners at Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro, as the firm deals with the Pellicano scandal fallout from the February indictment of lead partner, Terry Christensen. Garry Abrams of the Daily Journal likens her job to "arguing over the condition of Humpty Dumpty after that ovoid's unfortunate contest with gravity. Is the big egg an omelet or merely missing a couple of pieces of shell that can be glued back on?"

clickApril 24, 2006: The buzz about the Anthony Pellicano scandal has even spread to freshmen on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.

clickApril 22, 2006: Pellicano's m.o. was to go dig up embarassing information about his enemies and that information was sex, drugs and rock and roll. Veriety reporter, Janet Sprintz, talks about Pellicano on NPR.

clickApril 21, 2006: Michael Viner, the publisher who brought us Faye Resnick’s trumped up “Diary” of her days with the late Nicole Brown Simpson; a memoir by four call girls called “You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again”; and disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair’s “Burning Down My Master’s House”, had had a deal with Anthony Pellicano, before Pellicano went to prison, to write a novel about his experiences for Viner. Viner hired Pellicano in his nasty divorce from actress Deborah Raffin. Prior to his incarceration, Pellicano also shopped a TV series based on his life to HBO. Brad Grey, then a talent manager and producer of “The Sopranos,” was the one who brought it to the cable network. The Pellicano series didn’t sell, and Grey dropped it. Viner’s latest idea is to turn Pellicano’s novel into a movie and apparently Larry King and the William Morris Agency are interested.

clickApril 21, 2006: The potential conflicts for the officers have been underscored by the ongoing prosecution of Anthony Pellicano, the so-called private eye to the stars. He is accused of employing a veteran LAPD detective, Mark Arneson, to gain confidential information for his clients. It has since been determined that more than 100 police officers in the LAPD are licensed as private investigators, although the department still does not have a firm figure. LAPD Cmdr. Kenneth O. Garner said the department is considering banning officers from working as private investigators, and will investigate whether any officers abused their LAPD positions while working as investigators.

clickApril 20, 2006: Anthony Pellicano is goingto defend himself at his upcoming trial. Pellicano's current attorney, Steven Gruel, is just helping Pellicano file motions and has no intention of representing Pellicano at trial. The judge in Pellicano's case warned him on March 20 that it was almost invariably a terrible decision for a client to hire himself as a lawyer. The judge was willing to assign a federal public defender to Pellicano and bill the taxpayers for the cost. Pellicano said that was not necessary. Even though he would only have three and one-half hours a week in the MDC law library to prepare for his defense, Pellicano told the judge that he was confident that the best lawyer for Pellicano was Pellicano.


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April 20, 2006: Supermarket billionaire Ronald W. Burkle has told federal investigators, the Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano demanded that Mr. Burkle pay him $100,000 to $250,000 in exchange for Mr. Pellicano's agreeing not to investigate him. Mr. Pellicano told him he had been hired by Michael S. Ovitz, the former talent agent, who had been a partner with Mr. Burkle in several ill-fated business ventures. Mr. Ovitz, speaking to investigators, according to F.B.I. summaries, asserted that Mr. Pellicano had investigated him on Mr. Burkle's behalf, but also acknowledged paying Mr. Pellicano $75,000 to dig up embarrassing information on 15 to 20 people including Mr. Burkle. However, Pellicano was simultaneously bad-mouthing Mr. Ovitz to Mr. Burkle. The material reviewed by The New York Times shows Mr. Pellicano playing Mr. Burkle and Mr. Ovitz against each other, seeking to use his mission in behalf of Mr. Ovitz to gain a much bigger payday from Mr. Burkle. Mr. Burkle never paid Mr. Pellicano but was generous with gifts. Mr. Burkle spoke frequently and met at least once with Mr. Pellicano after Mr. Pellicano's arrest on explosives charges in November 2002. He told the F.B.I. that he had allowed Mr. Pellicano to use his retreat in La Jolla, Calif., had arranged to have Mr. Pellicano's son swim with dolphins at Sea World, and had given Mr. Pellicano tickets to the Hollywood Bowl. Apparently both Burkle and Ovitz share Los Angeles P.R.-meister Mike Sitrick who has been running damage control for both of them lately in the media.

clickApril 19, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that when the Devil came calling, in the lumpy pudding face of Anthony Pellicano, many Industry power players hired him, especially when in the throes of professional or personal wars they wanted to win at all costs. Anthony Pellicano was one heck of a signer. In 1982, right after Bernie Brillstein's client John Belushi OD'ed Pellicano comes calling at the Brillstein office and asked, "Is there anything you want me to do?" To which the grief-stricken Brillstein responded, "Tell me, what can you do when the poor guy is dead?" 

clickApril 19, 2006: There exists a wide range of opinions on whether or not Pellicano will broker a deal with the prosecutors that sells out his former clients. Two years ago, Bert Fields (the attorney who ramins a person of interest in the federal investigation has worked with Pellicano for over 20 years) told Vanity Fair, "I would bet my life and my child's life that Anthony would never betray someone he was working for." Others are not so sure. "He'll roll over," says Ernie Rizzo, a Chicago private eye and contemporary of Pellicano's. "He's in his 60s. He can't afford 10 years in jail."

clickApril 19, 2006: There seems to be similarities between the Jack Abramoff and Anthony Pellicano scandals. Like Abramoff, Pellicano went that extra mile for his clients. At issue in the FBI's ongoing investigation is whether the agents and studio executives who hired him to gain the upper hand in their various negotiations and lawsuits understood his criminal methods. Following the Abramoff pattern, Pellicano is more illustration than aberration. It may be far from routine for Hollywood muckety-mucks to sic spies on their enemies or send goons to intimidate prying journalists. But the ruthlessness and aggression that prompted producers, agents, and L.A. lawyers to hire Pellicano are perfectly normal in Hollywood. He was merely a hyperbolic expression of the narcissism and paranoia that characterize the movie mogul's relentless drive for dominance in pursuit of mediocrity. Pellicano also personifies that industry's eternal tendency to confuse life and art. He's a real-life character based on a Mickey Spillane movie: the hot-tempered Chicago gumshoe serving as the studio chief's strong arm. This time, Hollywood wrote him into its private script.

clickApril 19, 2006: According to Nikki Finke, Geraldo Rivera, of Fox News is planning to cover the Anthony Pellicano case in his new show "Geraldo at Large" with once- or twice- weekly panel discussions about the developments and details of the ongoing scandal.

clickApril 19, 2006: The conspiracy and racketeering trial of indicted private-eye Anthony Pellicano and six co-defendants, who ars still pleading not guilty, will be postponed six more months until October, U.S. Dist. Judge Dale S. Fischer judge decided. This delay is to to allow defense attorneys reasonable time to review the evidence still being compiled by the government.


clickApril 18, 2006: Even though the law firm of Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, et al. may be off the hook with the government in the Anthony Pellicano scandal, it appears that Bert Fields is being separated from his firm in the press by the firm’s own spokesman, Brian Sun.  Two articles recently appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Journal that were both masterminded by Sun. Sun seems to be planting these stories with more to come to sacrifice Fields for the good of the company.

clickApril 18, 2006: Despite the persistent rumor that Los Angeles Times itself may have hired Pellicano and the fact that there's even a name of who did the hiring being floated, David Garcia, the LAT's director of media relations, said this morning: "The Los Angeles Times, including its legal department, has never hired Anthony Pellicano ever. This includes in-house legal counsel as well as any outside legal counsel working on behalf of the Times." However, sources tell Nikki Finke that the LAT is playing "a semantics game."

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clickApril 18, 2006Attorneys for Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, filed a lawsuit yesterday against Anthony Pellicano and AT&T/SBC Telecommunications for invasion of privacy. A former telephone company employee allegedly helped Pellicano wiretap her in the service of attorney Terry Christensen.  Two months ago, a federal grand jury indicted Terry N. Christensen on charges that he paid Pellicano $100,000 to illegally wiretap Lisa Bonder Kerkorian's phone to gain a tactical advantage in a legal dispute. In one conversation, the indictment says, Pellicano told Christensen about a wiretapped call between Bonder Kerkorian and her attorneys and warned Christensen to "be very careful about this, because there is only one way for me to know this." Pellicano also assured Christensen, "I know everything that's going on, and obviously they don't know I know." Attorneys for Bonder Kerkorian said it was likely that others defendants would be added to the lawsuit.

clickApril 17, 2006: According to Nikki Finke In the ongoing Los Angeles Times vs New York Times bitch-slap over Pellicano coverage the NYT is winning and the LAT is losing. In fact, this is shaping up as not even a fair fight. This is a story in the LAT's backyard, not to mention the biggest scandal to trip up and tintillate Hollywood in recent memory. The Los Angeles Times' inability to hit hard at the Hollywood types caught up in the Pellicano mess thus far has given rise to some major rumors. The newspaper itself may have hired Pellicano to do some work for the legal department in the past. There's even a name of who did the hiring being floated, but nothing about why. Right before Easter weekend, the New York Times broke that big story about what Grey and Ovitz actually said to the FBI. So what was the Los Angeles Times' reaction? A lame defense of Grey's two accounts to the FBI of the extent of his acquaintance with Pellicano, including statements by Grey's attorneys claiming there was nothing inconsistent about that.

clickApril 17, 2006: Dan Webb, one of the nation’s top white-collar criminal defense lawyer, will head the defense of entertainment attorney Terry Christensen, indicted in February in the federal investigation of private investigator Anthony Pellicano. Mr. Webb, 60, a former federal prosecutor practicing at Winston & Strawn LLP, wasn’t able to win acquittal on any of the 18 fraud and racketeering counts against former Illinois governor George Ryan, who now faces a long prison sentence.

clickclickclickApril 17, 2006: "Die Hard" director John McTiernan, the biggest name indicted so far in the Hollywood wiretapping scandal involving disgraced celebrity sleuth Anthony Pellicano, pleaded guilty on Monday to lying to federal agents. McTiernan is the sixth person to plead guilty in the pellicano investigation. Appearing before U.S. District Court Judge Dale Fischer after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors, the 55-year-old director admitted that he had lied to agents when he said that he had not asked Pellicano to wiretap producer Charles Roven, with whom he worked on the 2002 film "Rollerball." The speed with which McTiernan entered his guilty plea came as a surprise. It is believed he will be a cooperating witness in the government's investigation but that wasn't revealed. There's another hearing for McTiernan on April 24th and sentencing takes place on July 31th. Prosecutors asked that details of his plea agreement be sealed. U.S. Attorney Dan Saunders said that McTiernan's case probably would be combined with others involving Pellicano.

clickclickApril 16, 2006Last Friday, two days after his NEWSWEEK interview and the day after a dinner with Grey and others, Redstone awoke to a front-page story in The New York Times further detailing Grey's involvement with Pellicano. Redstone said later that Grey still had his support. "I have read The New York Times, and I still say I saw nothing in it that would make me change my opinion," he said.

clickclickclickApril 14, 2006: Today's NY Times nudges the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century incrementally closer to embattled Paramount emperor Brad Grey's doorstep, reporting that when the studio chief told the FBI that he was "casually acquainted" with the "colorful" Pellicano, he probably meant something slightly cozier than just nodding a "What's up?" to the detective across the room at a cocktail party. Unsurprisingly, Grey's attorneys have already rebutted in the LA Times, intoning their "Why is everyone so whooped up? Brad's only a witness!" mantra, and assuring that there is no inconsistency between Grey's "I hardly know the guy! Who are we talking about again?" and "We had lunch five times" accounts because of Grey's waiving of his attorney-client privilege in his second FBI interview. The NY Times article suggests that the government’s questioning of Grey and Ovitz indicates they’re homeing in on entertainment lawyer Bert Fields despite that earlier this week the Los Angeles Times reported that Field's firm may not be indicted.

clickApril 14, 2006: Brad Grey, the chairman of Paramount Pictures, and Michael Ovitz, 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 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, Lilly LeMasters. 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. Michael S. Ovitz acknowledged to the F.B.I. that he paid Mr. Pellicano in April or May of 2002 to obtain information on 15 to 20 people who were saying negative things about him. They included former business associates and Bernard Weinraub, then a reporter for The New York Times who was reporting on the demise of a company Mr. Ovitz started after he left Disney, and Anita Busch, a freelance reporter who wrote with Mr. Weinraub. Summaries of F.B.I. interviews seen by The New York Times — documents that are routinely compiled as the raw material of investigations — give no indication that Mr. Grey or Mr. Ovitz knew Mr. Pellicano had used illegal means. But they paint a picture of their hands-on dealings with the disgraced detective. Mr. Fields, the entertainment lawyer, has acknowledged being a subject of the investigation, but, like Mr. Grey and Mr. Ovitz, has said he had no knowledge of illegal activity. In Mr. Grey's F.B.I. session, he expounded upon Mr. Fields's ties to Mr. Pellicano, saying "Fields and Pellicano shared a 'key relationship,' that Pellicano was frequently used by Mr. Fields, and that Mr. Pellicano was 'part of Fields's team.' "

clickclickApril 13, 2006: Though still weighing charges against individual attorneys, federal prosecutors may have decided not to seek an indictment against the largest law firm linked to the ongoing investigation of Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano, Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman, Machtinger & Kinsella. The decision against prosecuting the firm at this time does not preclude prosecutors from filing charges against individual attorneys who work there if they can prove that the lawyers knew that Pellicano was allegedly wiretapping their adversaries and improperly accessing confidential information to help win cases. Nor does it preclude prosecutors from filing charges against the firm in the future if new evidence arises. It was unclear whether authorities decided not to bring charges against Greenberg Glusker because it was cooperating with the investigation, or because evidence was insufficient to prosecute the firm — or both. Even without a federal criminal investigation looming, Greenberg Glusker's legal troubles are not over. They still face civil lawsuits filed by those named as "victims" in the indictment who now allege that the firm was responsible for Pellicano and his associates allegedly violating their civil rights through wiretaps and illegal background checks. And, what, exactly, spared the firm? It could have been, well, that it’s a law firm. Legal experts told the LA Times that law firms make difficult criminal targets. “How do you prove that a group of lawyers, officers of the court, got together and conspired to engage in illegal conduct?” asked attorney Diane Karpman, a legal ethics expert. “It’s virtually impossible.'’ This is why people become lawyers, so they can commit crimes with impunity without consequences. NSA can’t wiretap terrorists without a firestorm of protest, but attorneys can hire PI’s to do so with impunity.

clickApril 12, 2006Pellicano is due to go on trial next week, but that may be postponed until the end of May or even later. More indictments are expected. Most alarming for Anthony Pellicano's clients is that the sleuth seems to have taped not only their enemies but also their own discussions about how he would glean information. “There's nothing unusual about a Hollywood law firm hiring a private detective like Pellicano,” says Edward Jay Epstein, the author of a book on Hollywood called “The Big Picture”, “but it's unheard of for one to deliberately entrap his own clients.”

clickclickApril 12, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that Bruce Feirstein, the screenwriter who pens the New York Observer's "New Yorker's Diary" from Los Angeles writes: "The Pellicano Case: Recently, I met with a talent manager who hired Anthony Pellicano during the mid-1990’s, on behalf of a movie-star client with a female-stalker problem. As the manager recounted it, their first meeting eerily foreshadowed Jared Paul Stern: 'Pellicano offered us a laundry list — a menu — and asked exactly how far we wanted to take this,' the manager said. 'Nobody can plead naïve here. We all knew exactly what we’d bargained for and what we were getting billed for.'...As the manager put it, 'Everybody’s going to turn. These are wimpy white guys; they’re not going to jail.' 

clickApril 11, 2006: Bob Pfeiffer, is out on $1 million bail after pleading guilty in Los Angeles in connection with the Anthony Pellicano case. Back in 1995, during his three-year tenure as president of the label, Pfeiffer had been sued for sexual harassment by one of his employees. According to the government's indictment of Pellicano last February, the woman in question was illegally wiretapped and spied on by the private detective. Pellicano was working for Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer's ex-wife had turned over an e-mail he had sent her in January referring to the Pellicano investigation. "Hypothetically, I am assuming I will not have the money to fight this if it escalates; I am not going to jail. You see me. I wouldn't last a night," he wrote. "I have two alternatives then to run or commit suicide... " Pfeifer admitted he paid Pellicano $125,000 to snoop on Erin Finn in 2000 because she had given a negative deposition in a case involving Pfeifer's ex-employer. He faces between one and five years in prison.

clickApril 11, 2006Acting U.S. Attorney George Cardona says the racketeering charge was prompted by Pellicano paying police officers to give him information on his targets. "It's been going on for years and years and years, apparently," Anne Thompson of the Hollywood Reporter notes. "So, when did all these powerful people think that it was OK?" Anthony Pellicano is "like the J. Edgar Hoover of Hollywood," defense attorney and CBS News legal consultant Mickey Sherman says. "Supposedly, he's got all the dirt on everybody and, now that he's being targeted, everybody's in trouble." 

clickApril 11, 2006: Pellicano was a chump change play. But he got some men who were a whole better educated than him to do some incredibly stupid things. He convinced himself too. Pellicano was arrogant enough to believe he was above doing the scut work a good P.I. has to do. He also thought he was entitled, because of his prosecutor contacts in the justice system, not to be prosecuted by that system even when he knew the FBI was on his tail.

clickApril 9, 2006: Letters from prosecutors gush about the testimony and analysis that Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano provided as an audio forensics expert since the 1970's. Even Pellicano's current defense attorney, Stephen Gruel, a former federal prosecutor, had used him as a witness to refute claims in an organized crime case that a recording by an undercover FBI agent might have been altered. Pellicano is accused of bugging phones and bribing police to get information on celebrities and others at the same time he was providing expert testimony for prosecutors. His alleged habit of playing both sides of the law raises some serious questions. G. Douglas Jones, a U.S. attorney in Alabama had used Pellicano to analyze an undercover FBI audiotape of former Ku Klux Klan member Thomas Blanton Jr. as part of an investigation into the 1963 killing of four black girls in the bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham, Ala. Jones said he had checked out Pellicano's credentials with other federal prosecutors before using him. "Regardless of what his other practices were, we had no complaints of what he did in our case," Jones said. That conviction could now be thrown out. Mac Cauley, the U.S. attorney who used Pellicano in the Aisenberg case couldn't recall anymore why Pellicano had been used in the case.

clickApril 7, 2006: In light of court documents, Pellicano may have had a reason to feel a touch of arrogance when it came to being investigated by law enforcement. Some prosecutors really loved the guy – especially when he was testifying for them. An examination of court files pertaining to his November 2002 felony indictment for possession of explosives shows that Pellicano’s widely-reported boasts of “having friends downtown” was not idle chit-chat. Long after being accused in the national media of being a thug who terrorized Hard Copy reporter Diane Dimond, lying to the press repeatedly for clients Michael Jackson and lawyers Bertram Fields and Howard Weitzman, and for being way too close to the allegedly sick behavior of the late producer Don Simpson, Pellicano was a legal expert-for-hire. When former L.A. mayor James Hahn was running the City Attorney’s office, one of his prosecutors lauded Pellicano for his  “courtesies and professionalism.” Even the U.S. Navy enlisted Pellicano. Pellicano never testified for any federal prosecutor in the Central District of California (the office that is now prosecuting him for wiretapping). Prosecutors who used Pellicano in the past may meet up with him again in federal court. According to Stephen Yagman, a veteran L.A. attorney, Pellicano has every right to call them to testify if he goes to trial on wiretapping charges.

clickclickApril 7, 2006Robert Pfeifer, a former music company executive of Disney-owned Hollywood Records, pleaded guilty to paying  Anthony Pellicano at least $125,000 for illegally wiretap an ex-girlfriend, Erin Finn, who had testified against him in a business dispute. He was charged by a federal Grand Jury with witness tampering and wiretapping. He had remained in federal custody since his arrest but bond is now set at $1,000,000 since his cooperation. Pfeifer "was fully aware of the wiretap and discussed with Pellicano the interception of Finn's telephone calls," court documents said. Pfeifer told U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer that Pellicano's "investigation included wiretapping, and we gained knowledge from that." His attorney, Evan Jenness, said that if Pfeifer meets government obligations, the remaining count would be dismissed. The admission makes Pfeifer the fifth person to plead guilty to federal charges in the ongoing Pellicano investigation.  Four others have admitted a variety of charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy. Earlier this year, former Beverly Hills police Officer Craig Stevens and Pellicano's onetime girlfriend, Sandra Will Carradine, pleaded guilty to lying about Pellicano's use of illegal tactics. At present, Pellicano and eight others still face charges.

clickApril 7, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that Anthony Pellicano used to boast from jail to friends that no one would ever be able to crack his wiretapping encryption. Pellicano believed that his modern encryption system was uncrackable even by the feds' combination of heavy-duty hardware and clever code experts. However, an encryption protocol officer in a private computer security firm told The Recorder that several federal agencies have designed systems to figure out passcodes to gain access to the drive, generally by inputting detailed data about an individual into a computer to get a psych profile that can suggest possibilities. The Recorder legal paper on Feb. 27th quoted an FBI spokeswoman confirming that "FBI technical expertise certainly was utilized" during the investigation. Possibly expertise from the NSA was utilized too.

clickclickApril 6, 2006: Ten Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman Machtinger & Kinsella lawyers will leave by the end of the month to form Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert, a business and entertainment litigation firm in Santa Monica, Calif. The new firm will likely consist of up to 15 lawyers, including some from other firms. The Greenberg Glusker attorneys leaving the firm as early as April 17 include Dale Kinsella, Howard Weitzman, Lawrence Iser, Michael Kump, Gregory Aldisert, Alan Kossoff, Gregory Korn, Kristen Spanier, Jennifer McGrath and Gregory Gabriel. "We decided to practice in a smaller environment because we think we can have more fun and provide great services for clients," Weitzman said. He denied that the departure had anything to do with the ongoing investigation into the firm's use of Anthony Pellicano. It was Howard L. Weitzman who brought Pellicano to Los Angeles from Chicago in the first place. The Pellicano story begins with Weitzman, who used the detective to dig up dirt when he defended John DeLorean in the early 1980s. This is the very same Howard Weitzman, by the way, who was O.J. Simpson’s defense lawyer for two whole days in June 1994. In 1993, when Michael Jackson needed a criminal attorney, Bert Fields —his entertainment lawyer — had turned to Weitzman. Weitzman in turn brought along Pellicano. When Weitzman got out, and passed Jackson’s criminal matters to Johnnie Cochran, Pellicano stayed on the case. Weitzman continued to defend Jackson in other cases, however, including some brought by former Neverland employees. Weitzman has obviously been planning an escape from Greenberg Glusker for a while. Weitzman left the practice of law. For a decade, from 1995 to 2005, he stayed out of the Hollywood limelight. But in May 2005, less than a year ago, he returned to the business by partnering up with his old pal, Bert Fields. Now it’s over. To combine two clichés: Weitzman sees the writing on the wall because he knows where all the bodies are buried. He helped Fields bury them, after all.

clickApril 6, 2006: Tom Cruise’s lawyer, Ricardo Cestero, his point man in Bert Fields’ Hollywood law firm Greenberg, Glusker, et al., worked for years for none other than jailed private eye Anthony Pellicano before obtaining a law degree. Ricardo Cestero’s name crops up in nearly every story about Cruise’s legal issues in the last seven years. Notably, Cestero represented Cruise in a defamation lawsuit involving a gay man who claimed to be Cruise’s lover. Cruise wound up winning $10 million. But what most people don’t know is that before he went to law school and came to work for Fields, Cestero labored in the office of Anthony Pellicano as a private investigator.

clickApril 6, 2006: Ex-porn actor and Anthony Pellicano legman, Paul Barresi, is now working for Bertram Field's legal defense. John Keker, Field's criminal defense attorney, asked Barresi over this past weekend if he knew anything to potentially discredit a potential government witness against Fields. While Field's clients like Michael Ovitz and Brad Grey are telling prosecutors that only their lawyers hired Pellicano, the attorneys' defense team are now cautioning prosecutors that the clients may have engaged Pellicano on their own.

clickApril 5, 2006: Howard Weitzman is the lawyer who worked hand-in-glove with Anthony Pellicano on the John DeLorean cocaine case in the early 1980s, and for years after. The attorney and the P.I. had a falling out in the late 1990s. Weitzman must not have been really shocked at Pellicano’s connection to his law partner Bert Fields. Weitzman is contemplating writing an autobiographical book. He’s talked to Allison Hope Weiner about writing the book with him. Weiner, a lawyer, had been an associate at Wyman Bautzer when Weitzman was a managing partner there, he said. Weiner is now half of The New York Times’ Pellicano reporting team that has written extensively about Fields’ involvement with Pellicano — but nary a word about Weitzman’s.

clickApril 5, 2006: A book by Vanity Fair journalist, John Connolly, called The Sin Eater will be coming out about Anthony Pellicano. Print rights have just been bought by Atria Books.(Editor Wendy Walker acquired the book directly from the author.) It's been 12 years since Connolly first (and was the first to) claim that the shadowy private investigator was wiretapping phones, homes and offices on behalf of bigwig clients waging internecine war against each other. The author is said to have been threatened in the past by Pellicano for his aggressive reporting, allegedly saying he would “beat up” the meddlesome writer. Connolly promises that explosive new details in the case are still to come. “This thing is so much bigger than even I thought,” Connolly told the New York Post in February. “Aside from the names people think they know, there are going to be a number of big surprises. Some very important lawyers in California whose names haven’t even been mentioned yet are going to be indicted.”

clickApril 5, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that Viacom Inc.'s general counsel has sent the New York Times a toughly worded letter fat with attachments refuting large portions and many details of that March 13th Page One story loosely linking Paramount boss Brad Grey to Anthony Pellicano.  The letter, received within a week after the article was published, complains among other things about the so-called uncorroborated statements from the article's primary source, Grey ex-client Garry Shandling's ex-girlfriend Linda Doucette. This does put a new twist that wasn't reported by the Los Angeles Times on that strange statement they printed from Viacom Inc. chairman Sumner Redstone. "I have the utmost faith in the integrity of Brad Grey...But can anybody be certain of anything but life and death?"

clickclickApril 5, 2006: Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey was given a vote of confidence by executives of parent company Viacom Inc. despite his link to an indicted private investigator. Paramount spokeswoman Janet Hill acknowledged that Grey has testified before a grand jury in connection with the Pellicano case and has been interviewed by FBI agents.

clickApril 5, 2006Suzonne Stirling, a witness in a murder case involving the stepson of John McTiernan said that Anthony Pellicano accused her of "obstructing justice" and apparently had investigated her as well. "Mr. Pellicano made several comments to me which made it clear to me that he knew several personal facts about me, including where my grandmother lived," Stirling said.

clickApril 4, 2006: Audiotape discussion about the Anthony Pellicano case on local radio station KCRW. Requires Real Player.

clickApril 4, 2006: Three law firms and six lawyers have settled a civil suit alleging that they hired private investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap a woman who had sued their clients. The terms of the settlement are confidential, and the defendants deny they were involved in any wiretapping. Kissandra Cohen, who worked at Westlake Village, Calif.-based Masry & Vititoe in 1999, filed the suit two years ago against her former firm and two Los Angeles-based firms, Lynberg & Watkins and Gaims, Weil, West & Epstein. The settlement includes the six attorneys and Erin Brockovich, a researcher at the Masry & Vititoe firm who was the subject of the 2000 film Erin Brockovich. Cohen claimed that the firms wiretapped her telephone while litigating a previous sexual discrimination and slander suit she filed in 2000 against Masry & Vititoe and Edward Masry, name partner of the firm. Masry died last year.

clickApril 4, 2006: Baseball slugger Barry Bonds also relied on Anthony Pellicano. In 1994, porn star Jennifer Peace, who performed as Devon Shire, claimed Bonds was the father of her unborn child. Bonds hired Pellicano to find out who else Peace was having sex with, according to former Pellicano legman and porn star Paul Barresi.

clickclickApril 4, 2006: John McTiernan's former wife, Donna Dubrow, also a Hollywood producer, said in that Mr. McTiernan had acknowledged in a sworn deposition in their divorce case that he had hired Anthony Pellicano to investigate her. That case began in August 1997 and is still working its way through the courts. Mr. McTiernan was first represented in the divorce action by Dennis M. Wasser, then switched to a new lawyer, Robert J. Nachshin. Ms. Dubrow said she believed that Mr. Pellicano worked alongside both lawyers on Mr. McTiernan's behalf. "I have every reason to believe he was involved for several years," she said, adding that she was seeking to confirm her suspicions that her phone had been wiretapped by Mr. Pellicano. John McTiernan has waived his right to an indictment and likely reached either a plea agreement with prosecutors or some sort of cooperating agreement already.

clickApril 3, 2006: John McTiernan, director of "The Hunt for Red October" and "Rollerball," was charged on Monday with lying to the FBI in the Hollywood wire-tap investigation surrounding Anthony Pellicano. McTiernan, who also produced and directed "Die Hard 3," became the 14th defendant to face charges. "In fact, as defendant McTiernan well knew, he had hired and paid Anthony Pellicano to conduct a wiretapping of Charles Roven and Anthony Pellicano had discussed with defendant McTiernan his interception of Charles Roven's telephone calls and the information that Anthony Pellicano had obtained from that wiretap," according to court papers.

clickApril 3, 2006: Bert Fields, under the pseudonym D. Kincaid, is the author of two thinly veiled romans à clef, The Sunset Bomber and The Lawyer's Tale. The similarities between Fields' life and his protagonist, Harry Cain, are striking enough that, at this eleventh hour, the prosecutors should put down their headphones and pick up a book. The novels tell the life story of big-shot lawyer to the stars Bert Fields, er, Harry Cain, who represents everybody who's anybody in Tinseltown. Cain smacks of Fields in numerous ways. Cain's close acquaintances mirror some of Fields'—Mel Brooks, Dustin Hoffman—but his most intriguing colleague is Cipriano "Skip" Corrigan. Corrigan boasts a likeness to Anthony Pellicano: Apart from the obvious fact that they're in the same line of work, they're also both at least partially of Italian descent, have black belts in karate, and are not afraid to resort to the tough-guy act. Cain calls on Corrigan when he's faced with a personal dilemma. Corrigan frequently tells Cain information, implying that he's able to monitor Cain's adversaries conversations. Cain's Pellicano-like sidekick Corrigan makes many appearances in the Harry Cain novels, entering the picture at Cain's beck and call, ready to dredge up whatever dirt is needed. And when Cain questions Corrigan about how he obtains the information he presents, it's typically qualified with a comment like, "You know better than to ask that, for Christ's sake." This wink-wink communication strategy may technically leave Cain in the dark, but his ready embrace of the information, despite the fact that it was questionably attained, still leaves him culpable.

clickApril 3, 2006From the beginning of Bo Zenga's lawsuit against Brad Grey, Bert Fields tried to discredit Zenga by painting him as a liar. Anthony Pellicano helped bury Zenga in a blizzard of allegations about his own conduct, including accusations that he'd puffed up his résumé. As a result, Dovel, Zenga's attorney, instructed Zenga not to answer hundreds of questions at a subsequent deposition. That led the trial judge to bar Zenga from testifying in his own case. Zenga lost, and failed on appeal, too. His lawyer blames the private eye. "If Anthony Pellicano had not been in the case, Bo would have testified, and we would have won," Dovel says. "He was incredibly effective." Zenga's story offers a glimpse at how Pellicano's clients benefited from the private eye's activities, and raises questions of what they knew and how they knew it.

clickMarch 31, 2006: As reported first by The Recorder over a week before, Howard Weitzman, the attorney who brought Pellicano to Los Angeles to work on the Delorean case, will be leaving Bert Field's law firm for something "smaller".

clickMarch 28, 2006: The civil fallout from Anthony Pellicano's wiretapping indictment may leave bankruptcy as the only alternative for some major Los Angeles law firms. Illegal activity such as wiretapping won't be covered by malpractice insurance. Under state law, each illegal wiretapping count carries minimum statutory damages of $5,000, meaning defendants could be on the hook for over $8 million on the wiretapping claims alone, never mind punitive damages or other claims. So far civil suits have been filed against Bert Field's firm, Terry Christensen's firm and several smaller firms including that of now deceased toxic tort fame, Ed Masry. The relationships were so close between Pellicano and Field's firm that several lawyers there have retained their own counsel. Another lawyer at the firm -- Ricardo Cestero, who has represented actor Tom Cruise -- worked for Pellicano prior to joining Field's company.

clickMarch 27, 2006The FBI seems to have no conclusive evidence that actor Steven Segal ever hired Anthony Pellicano to intimidate reporter Anita Busch. Pellicano may have been hired by Michael Ovitz to intimidate Busch. Pellicano began prying into Busch's life nine days after she and Bernard Weintraub wrapped up a series of dmaging articles on Ovitz for the New York Times and long before Segal was even on her radar. Pellicano sometimes was even authorized by his clients to negotiate on their behalf, as has happened in the past with Bert Fields and Michael Ovitz.

clickMarch 27, 2006: Reporter Anita Busch, whose complaints helped lead to the initial inquiry into Anthony Pellicano, appears to have quashed a book project she had with Washington writer Dan Moldea about her ordeal with the P.I. Busch's legal team, after seeing  Moldea's manuscript warned it would damage her civil lawsuit, which is still pending. Moldea's commented on the situation by saying, "I wouldn't do anything to hurt Anita because of all she's been through, and I wouldn't do anything to hurt this federal investigation."

clickMarch 25, 2006Former Sgt. Mark Arneson invoked his 5th Amendment rights about whether he used his position to "interfere with the administration of justice" in the bookmaking conviction of Eric Portocarrero. Portocarrero has accused Arneson and disgraced private investigator Anthony Pellicano of offering to "fix" aspects of the case if the defendant's brother came up with $100,000. Although Arneson and Pellicano are already awaiting trial on charges of wiretapping, extortion and conspiracy, the Portocarrero case brings to the table that Arneson and Pellicano also worked together to subvert the criminal justice system.

clickclickMarch 24, 2006: Actor Keith Carradine and his fiancée filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife, Sandra Carradine who hired indicted private eye Anthony Pellicano to wiretap her ex-husband. According to the complaint, which alleges numerous claims including invasion of privacy, negligence and illegal interception, disclosure and use of communications, Sandra Carradine and Pellicano also were romantically involved. Keith Carradine and his fiance, Hayley DuMond allege that beside the wiretapping, they were harassed, intimidated and followed by the defendants, calling their conduct "a reprehensible scheme to covertly obtain information."

clickclickMarch 24, 2006The first direct evidence of eavesdropping by Anthony Pellicano has surfaced in newly filed civil court documents: excerpts of what prosecutors have described as Mr. Pellicano's summaries of conversations he intercepted in 2001 between Vincent  "Bo" Zenga, a screenwriter and producer, and his lawyer, Gregory S. Dovel, during their contentious suit against the influential Hollywood executive Brad Grey, now head of Paramount Pictures. "When Pellicano came in, suddenly it was like a bomb exploded," Mr. Dovel said. "It was like they had access to everything. They were flipping witnesses. If they could take ... a friend of Bo's, and next thing you know, she's openly lying — what else is he going to be able to accomplish?"

clickMarch 23, 2006Lawyers at two firms enmeshed in the Pellicano investigation are exploring other options. About half a dozen attorneys at Bert Fields' firm, Greenberg Glusker, are talking about leaving. Howard Weitzman, a partner of Fields, appears to be the one leading the departure effort to create a separate firm. At Terry Christensen's firm a handful of associates have left since his indictment on February 15th. One associate said that even if Christensen's name is cleared, it bothers him that he was allegedly associated with Pellicano. "The people who can leave are -- it's just a matter of when," he said. 

clickMarch 23, 2006: Stanley Ornellas, the decorated FBI agent in charge of the Pellicano criminal investigation, has been licensed as a private investigator himself for six years, though he has never actually worked as a P.I. in that time. Ornellas’ mention of his P.I. license in the Nov. 19, 2002 search warrant affidavit for Pellicano's offices was meant as a form of “disclosure”. Tony Castro is the editor of the Hollywood Independent, a print weekly that covers the neighborhood where Anita Busch lived in 2002. He remembers that when Busch was first stalked and threatened, by Pellicano, even her co-workers at the LA Times said mean things to the press. "The only one who believed her was Stan Ornellas,” Castro added. “If Ornellas doesn’t believe Anita, everything that’s come out since then probably would have never come out at all.” 

clickMarch 22, 2006: Lawyers familiar with the Pellicano case say that even if he were to get the warrant thrown out this time, the evidence collected during the search of his office could be used against his co-defendants. And, they add, getting rid of the warrant is a long shot for Pellicano since he already failed on appeal in Superior Court. But it's always worth trying. "When you have an impossible case -- a case that's impossible to defend -- you try a lot of things," Sara Carradine's attorney, Peter Knecht, said about the current motions filed by the defense before the court. "Sometimes you get lucky."

clickclickMarch 21, 2006Prior to Pellicano asking to represent himself in court, his current attorney, Steven Gruel, filed a motion Monday revisiting the legality of the search warrants. Pellicano has maintained that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated, claiming the search was a ruse to get into his office to look for other suspected wrongdoing. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in June that the search was legitimate and FBI agents acted in good faith.  Three search warrant affidavits connected to raids on Pellicano's offices in 2002 are expected to be unsealed this week, possibly providing further details on the federal wiretapping investigation.

clickMarch 20, 2006During a court hearing, Anthony Pellicano spoke at length for the first time since he was indicted one month earlier. He said he wanted to know the results of the government's 3 1/2-year investigation into his activities and that he wants to act as his own lawyer in the wiretap case. "I have a lot of questions to see what they have been doing all this time," Pellicano told U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer. "I'm best suited to represent myself." Steven Gruel will continue to be Pellicano's attorney until the judge decides whether the shamus is competent to represent himself.

clickMarch 20, 2006Bert Fields "played chicken" and agreed to waive the statute of limitations and give federal prosecutors more time to investigate his role in their massive probe of illegal wiretapping and extortion by Anthony Pellicano. Fields and his attorneys apparently did not feel comfortable calling the government's bluff and risking an indictment, and prosecutors apparently felt they needed to do more work on the case before deciding they could prove that Fields had broken the law to a jury. Fields employed Pellicano on cases for well over a decade.

clickMarch 19, 2006: Sources within the PI's family have indicated that Pellicano wants to serve as his own counsel, firing Stephen Gruel, his third attorney in the case. "But he’s got a temper, and if he goes Saddam in the courtroom, it could get ugly,” says a family member.

clickMarch 19, 2006Stanley E. Ornellas, the lead FBI agent in the investigation of Anthony Pellicano, stated in a November 2002 government document regarding the case: “I have also been a licensed private investigator for approximately three years…” 

clickclickMarch 18, 2006George Kalta, one of 13 people charged so far in the federal wiretap case surrounding Pellicano implicated Pellicano before a federal judge as he pleaded guilty to conspiracy. "Your honour, I hired Mr. Pellicano because he told me that he could listen in to (the woman's) phone calls in hopes that he could get a conversation proving my innocence," Kalta said. "That was the only reason I hired Mr. Pellicano." Kalta pleaded guilty under a sealed deal with prosecutors and he appears to be cooperating in the investigation. Kalta's criminal defense attorney, Leslie Abramson, said that Pellicano bragged to her client about listening in on other people's conversations and about having connections within law enforcement. The connections included "a contact" in the Los Angeles County district attorney's office and a police officer who he said could get him a district attorney's memo for $5,000. "He bragged about how he did this [wiretapping] for other clients," Abramson said. "He said that is why people pay him so much." Abramson said Pellicano also boasted of his celebrity clients, including Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson.

clickMarch 18, 2006The Los Angeles Times doesn't seem to answer the question of how celebrity divorce lawyer, Dennis Wasser, whom they characterize as "urbane...silver-haired....opera-loving and a very straight shooter" ever became a U.S. government "person of interest" in the Pellicano probe.

clickMarch 17, 2006Secret deals and a lawsuit from six years ago may be coming back to haunt Paramount Pictures chief Brad Grey as talk of his involvement in the case of jailed Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano continues to grow. Court documents  show that Pellicano's alleged spying on a movie producer and his family could be related to a contentious lawsuit filed by that producer against Grey in 2000. The lawsuit was filed by producer Vincent "Bo" Zenga against Grey over the making of the film "Scary Movie," a Miramax/Dimension movie which was released in 2001. The law firm of Greenberg, Glusker et al, in which Pellicano's frequent employer Bert Fields is a senior partner, represented Grey. Fields, like Grey, is now under a microscope as more indictments are expected in the Pellicano case.

clickMarch 17, 2006Hollywood's top security guru, Gavin de Becker, was hated by Anthony Pellicano. "Pellicano hated de Becker," says Paul Barresi, who gathered information for Pellicano. "I guess he thought if he could discredit Gavin, it would help him." Reporter Stuart Goldman told Los Angeles magazine writer Rod Lurie in 1990 that Pellicano had confided that, before he was through, "de Becker's life would be disrupted in a way he cannot presently conceive of." Even though de Becker dated actress Geena Davis, among other beautiful women, Barresi says Pellicano asked him to find out if de Becker was gay.

clickclickMarch 17, 2006A secret recording by police in the 1998 Jones rape case reveals much about Anthony Pellicano, years before he became target of federal inquiry. Pellicano can be heard boasting of his celebrity clientele and the money he earns, prodding the detectives for information — even as he insists he isn't — and covering his rear after a break-in was reported at the apartment of a witness against his client. "It wasn't me," Pellicano says. "Anybody who does anything illegal, get 'em." Pellicano touted his law enforcement contacts ("I got a lot of friends on the job") or told the police, "I have a lot more information than you think I do."He quipped to the sex crimes prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Karla Kerlin — "You behaving yourself, by the way?" — and documents surfaced in subsequent litigation suggesting that Pellicano may have been digging into her background too.

clickMarch 17, 2006The issue of police officers moonlighting as private investigators has surfaced at the LAPD amid the federal investigation of private detective Anthony Pellicano, who allegedly hired an LAPD sergeant to help him spy on foes in civil and criminal cases. A department official said he and others knew that the sergeant worked for Pellicano. "We need to ban all outside work as private investigators. We need to ban officers working for private investigators," Councilman Jack Weiss said at a meeting of the council's Public Safety Committee.

clickMarch 16, 2006Nicole Kidman has been questioned by the FBI in the mushrooming investigation of private eye Anthony Pellicano's illegal wiretapping, sources say, because the feds found a recording of her talking to Tom Cruise in computers they seized from Pellicano's office in 2002. The recording was evidently made in 2001 after Kidman and Cruise announced they were getting a divorce. Cruise was represented by top L.A. matrimonial lawyer Dennis Wasser, who is known to have used Pellicano on other cases. Kidman, who was repped by New York lawyer Bill Beslow, hired private eye Richard Di Sabatino. The tape the feds played for Kidman "was probably from Tom's phone," said Di Sabatino. "Pellicano used to tap his own clients." Di Sabatino's efforts may have helped Kidman reach a quick agreement with Cruise with very little media coverage. "They settled quietly and relatively fast, and nothing came out except for one story in the National Enquirer, which was Pellicano's tabloid of choice," Di Sabatino said.

clickclickMarch 16, 2006Superior Court Judge Marjorie S. Steinberg refused to remove an Terry Christensen and his entire 160-member law firm from a child support battle involving multibillionaire Kirk Kerkorian, even though the lawyer has been indicted in a federal wiretapping and extortion case with Anthony Pellicano. Bonder Kerkorian's, attorney Lisa Helfend Meyer argued that they should be disqualified from the case because there was evidence Terry Christensen used illegal means to learn that Kirk Kerkorian was not the father of the 8-year-old child. Christensen had at least 27 conversations with Pellicano in which ''very personal and confidential information was disclosed'' that gave the lawyer an unfair advantage in the child support dispute, Meyer argued in court.

clickMarch 15, 2006A final clarification of what exactly was seized in the raid on Pellicano's offices in 2002: Investigators said they had recovered storage devices with a capacity of 3.868 terabytes of data, which they said would be the equivalent of two billion pages of double-spaced text. They did not find two billion pages of notes and wiretap transcripts.  

clickMarch 15, 2006Anthony Pellicano also had a long and close association with the Clinton White House beginning in the presidential campaign in 1992. In an attempt to combat the “bimbo eruption” that occurred during the first Clinton campaign, Pellicano surfaced evidence that the Gennifer Flowers tapes of her long-term boyfriend Bill Clinton’s phone calls were doctored. Pellicano's evidence was subsequently demolished, but the damage to Flowers’s credibility was done. Then, within four days of Matt Drudge’s 1998 revelations about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton’s relationship, Pellicano found Andy Bleiler. Lewinsky’s former drama coach gave the world a blow by blow account of how Lewinsky had told him she wanted a job as a White House intern so she could earn her “presidential kneepads.”In 2003 a man who had had also worked for both The National Enquirer and The Clinton White House, David Kendall, dismissed any connection between the Clintons and Pellicano as “politically motivated and demonstrably false.” But when Pellicano was directly asked by Newsweek if he was working for the Clintons, he had “no comment.”

clickMarch 15, 2006: The former Mrs. Jean-Claude Van Damme, Darcy LaPier Snodgrass, is now one of the growing list of persons targetted by Anthony Pellicano. Pellicano apparently targeted LaPier and then-husband Mark Hughes, the late Herbalife founder, at the behest of Hughes' jealous ex-wife. 

clickclickMarch 15, 2006: Review of the Los Angeles Police Department on controls over moonlighting has been prompted by the involvement of retired Los Angeles  Police sargeant, Mark Arneson, in the wiretapping and extortion scandal surrounding Anthony Pellicano. The officer involved in the Pellicano case never had a legal permit for moonlighting from the Police Department.

clickMarch 15, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that when Brad Grey was still the head of Brillstein-Grey, his successful talent management and production company, he and the William Morris Agency pitched HBO about doing an original series with the working title Hollywood Dick based on Pellicano’s life and work, with Pellicano included as the  consultant for the show.  Bernie Brillstein, Grey’s longtime partner, confirmed to NIcki Finke that the location of the old Brillstein Co., the forerunner to Grey’s firm (and where Grey was mentored from 1986 until 1991, when he became a 50-50 name partner) was just two doors down the hallway from Pellicano’s office in the same 9200 Sunset Boulevard building. Brillstein later took over Pellicano’s space in an expansion.

clickMarch 14, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that according to the hundreds of hours of tape-recorded conversations from the mid-1990s of Anthony Pellicano by deceased James Mitteager,  a former New York City cop turned freelance writer turned Los Angeles bureau chief of the Globe and also a vet of the National Enquirer, Pellicano's connections reached to Hollywood’s upper echelon law firms, publicity companies, lawyers, agents, managers, doctors, publicists. Though a local TV news station, KCBS, reported extensively on the tapes two years ago the FBI only recently demanded that the tapes and 69 pages of transcripts be handed over.

clickMarch 14, 2006: Attorneys representing a burdgeoning number of potential plaintiffs have said they may target law firms and celebrities who hired Pellicano. Lawyers Neville Johnson, Brian Panish and Lawrence Ecoff said their firms were jointly representing Lisa Kerkorian and that they had been contacted by half a dozen potential clients about filing invasion of privacy lawsuits naming Pellicano and others. One potential class-action lawsuit already has been filed against AT&T's predecessor company, SBC, by attorneys representing Erin Finn, the ex-girlfriend of a Pellicano client. Finn's attorneys, Brian Kabateck and Matthew Geragos, have said in recent days that they have signed up five other clients who were named as victims of Pellicano's alleged wiretapping or other crimes. The attorneys also are in talks with three other people who were listed as victims in the grand jury indictment.

clickMarch 13, 2006: Linda Doucett, the ex-fiance of comedian Gary Shandling, linked Brad Grey, now the chairman of Paramount Pictures, to indicted P.I. Anthony Pellicano. The actress' account is backed by another person's grand jury testimony, according to someone close to the investigation who insisted on anonymity for fear of angering prosecutors. The grand jury witness, this person said, gave an independent account that substantially agreed with Doucett's version.  Less than a month after her meeting with the FBI, Doucett said, she received a phone call from a man who did not identify himself, and whose voice she did not recognize.  "Linda," he said, "if you keep talking to your friend Stan, your child" - the man named Doucett's young son - "won't be going to" the private school where the boy was enrolled.  The FBI's investigation of the threat led to a suspect but no prosecution, Doucett said. To this day, she said, she does not know who the man was or who put him up to calling her.

clickMarch 12, 2006: Nikki Finke, of Deadline Hollywood, was told last month by a source who used to work for Brad Grey’s management and production company that Brad had long and close ties to Pellicano, longer and closer than anyone thought. The New York Times is well ahead of the Los Angeles Times on this breaking and increasingly broad scandal rocking Hollywood as well as L.A.’s high-profile legal community. While Los Angeles Times reporters to date have taken a typically all-encompassing but general look at the case, the New York Times' Weiner and Halbfinger have published big news breaks about Michael Ovitz’s, Bert Field’s and now Brad Grey's connections with it.

clickMarch 10, 2006: Cathy Shulman, the producer of the Academy Award winning movie "Crash" was deposed in the ongoing case involving private detective Anthony Pellicano concerning allegations that he wiretapped and otherwise probed the backgrounds of prominent entertainment industry figures.  Ms. Shulman had been involved in a legal battle with Michael Ovitz during the period in question.

clickMarch 9, 2006: Nikki Finke reports that two high profile Westside Los Angeles litigators, Neville Johnson (of the firm Johnson and Rishwain) and Brian Panish (of Panish Shea & Boyle) are meeting with many victims of the Pellicano wiretapping scandal to jointly represent them. Johnson is a foremost go-to guy for invasion-of-privacy torts, especially against the media. Panish is best known as the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer who brought General Motors to its knees in 1999 over secret documents and memos stemming from fuel-tank fires that erupted in collisions. Johnson was quoted warning that the damages could be vast. 

clickMarch 6, 2006: Anthony Pellicano wasn't picky about who he worked for. One of the most stunning things about him was that he would sell certain clients down the river in order to protect other clients. Lawyers, speaking on behalf of Pellicano, have said that the government is still trying to persuade him to become a witness. Pellicano's high tech operation was hardly a secret and he was even proud of it.

clickclickMarch 2, 2006Attorneys and others involved in the Pellicano case have said they believe that the FBI and federal prosecutors have uncovered significant new leads from evidence taken more than three years ago from Pellicano's Sunset Strip offices. It is not clear whether the evidence came from cooperating witnesses or from cracking codes used by Pellicano to conceal alleged illegal recordings in computers. "I believe they are making progress" on decoding the encryption of tapes", said one defense attorney. "And anybody who has talked to Pellicano has to be a little concerned." However, Pellicano is "anxious" just to move things along, according to his defense attorney, Stephen Gruel.  "He's been in custody for 2 1/2 years and thought he was finished paying his debt to society." Guess Mr. Pellicano and many of his A-list employers thought that 2 1/2 years in federal prison for possessing sufficient explosives to take down a commercial jetliner was going to be the only punishment doled out for their many illegal activities over the years. Hopefully the Pellicano case is just a start of what will evolve into a much broader scrutiny of the legal and law enforcement professions. As  of right now there is not only a failure of some to follow the law, but also by those who are entrusted to make sure that laws are followed.

clickMarch 2, 2006The FBI wants to talk with celebrity divorce attorney, Dennis Wasser, and his star client, Tom Cruise. L.A. entertainment attorney, Terry Christensen, who was also indicted in the ongoing Pellicano investigation, hooked up with the P.I. through Dennis Wasser.  Dream Team founder Robert Shapiro also appeared in court at a pretrial hearing to support his partner Christensen, who is still free on bail.

clickclickclickMarch 1, 2006: Anthony Pellicano's trial is scheduled to go forward on April 18, 2006.  "Mr. Pellicano wants to get this matter moving and defend himself against the charges," said Pellicano's attorney, Stephen Gruel. A total of 13 people have been charged in the case. Three have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including wire fraud and perjury.   Federal prosecutor Dan Saunders alerted U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer that additional charges are expected to be added to the existing indictment before the anticipated trial date.  Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, declined to elaborate on the potential for new charges. "It's an ongoing investigation, and certainly it's possible that additional defendants will be named," he said. The government will soon turn over evidence that includes thousands of pages of documents to the defense attornies, including FBI reports and numerous copies of recordings seized by federal agents. The next status conference is set for March 20th.

clickMarch 1, 2006 Lawyer to the stars Bert Fields is telling associates that an indictment may be imminent. Fields' attorney, former San Francisco prosecutor John Keker, was spotted arriving at Ontario Airport in suburban Los Angeles. Keker's companion may have been investigator Dave Fechheimer, who now has the task of investigating Pellicano, the investigator. Prosecutors claim that Pellicano spied on Stallone, and it may have been for Fields. Fields' wife, art dealer Barbara Guggenheim, had a long-running and contentious legal dispute with Stallone over a painting.

clickMarch 1, 2006Hollywood divorce lawyer Dennis Wasser, who has represented celebrities, including Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, was notified by federal authorities that he is a "person of interest" in their ongoing investigation of Anthony Pellicano, Wasser's attorneys admitted.  Though federal authorities have not made any statement indicating that Wasser's representation of his A-list clients is under investigation, there has been widespread speculation about Wasser's role in the Pellicano case since charges were brought two weeks ago against Terry N. Christensen, a prominent entertainment lawyer. Christensen was charged with paying Pellicano $100,000 to wiretap the former wife of his client, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.  In the indictment, the grand jury alleged that an unnamed lawyer called Pellicano on March 15, 2002, and told him to contact Christensen about "going after" attorney Stephen A. Kolodny, who was representing Kerkorian's former wife in a child custody battle. Kolodny had reported Christensen to the state bar for contacting his client, Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, without her attorney present. Wasser was the unnamed lawyer, according to attorneys representing individuals who have been questioned in the Pellicano case.

clickFebruary 28, 2006According to people with knowledge of the Pellicano investigation, many of the P.I.'s audio files were encrypted with powerful security software on his hard drive -- and therefore inaccessible to prosecutors and FBI agents for  more than a year until they were able to get past the encryption. When access was finally gained to the drive prosecutors got the windfall they needed: conversations between the detective and his clients. That became clear with the Christensen indictment, which is sprinkled with quotes taken from a conversation between the lawyer and detective.

clickFebruary 26, 2006Anthony Pellicano, the man who loved to cozy up to celebrities and bask in their reflected glory is finally getting his own share of media attention lately. It's just not the kind that he or any of his past clients welcome. Some magazines and newspapers, notably the Los Angeles Times, had even written colorful stories about Pellicano's exploits in the past. "Oh, how the mighty do fall," Heidi Fleiss said in a recent interview. "Pellicano was a bumbling idiot, but all these big shots hired him…. I'm supposed to be this bottom feeder with no morality — well, I have more morals than all of them put together."   For the moment, Pellicano appears to have adopted a code of silence. In a 1993 Vanity Fair profile, Bert Fields espoused his faith in Pellicano's loyalty: "I would bet my life and my child's life that Anthony would never betray someone he was working for."  Ironically, Pellicano might already have done so.  What the Terry Christensen indictment suggests is that Pellicano taped not only his targets, but his employers too.

clickFebruary 26, 2006So far Pellicano’s case has roped in mainly B-list names — Sylvester Stallone was a target. But last week the case moved up the food chain to take in one of the world’s richest men, his former wife and a top Hollywood lawyer. Some media analysts are wondering whether Hollywood has taken note of the new landscape in corporate America. Rules brought in after the crackdown on Wall Street mean there are now serious consequences for corporate misdemeanours. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley rules introduced in 2002, that all the big film studios which are owned by large media companies are bound, chief executives carry responsibility for the behaviour of their executives.  

clickFebruary 26, 2006Anthony Pellicano, the former private eye to the stars, was hardly loved by his peers. “No one trusted him, and no one considered him ethical,” said Jan Tucker, a veteran private investigator based in Torrance. The suspicions piled up even before federal prosecutors revealed  more than 110 felony counts against Pellicano in February this year. Much of what licensed private eyes do is so tightly intertwined with the legal system that doing anything out of line isn't an option. “Half of what I do is federal criminal-defense work,” Dawson said. “In those instances, federal prosecutors and government agents are looking over our shoulders. I would venture to say few other professions are under such scrutiny.” But that doesn't stop people from asking investigators to cross the line. “People don't come to private eyes to play fair,” John Nazarian said, a Beverly Hills private investigator who has worked for many celebrities, recalling that the worst thing anyone asked him to do was to kill some horses. He refused. Scott Ross, a private detective who worked for lawyers defending actor Robert Blake and singer Michael Jackson, said he has been asked to tap people's phone lines. “I tell them, 'No, absolutely not,' ” Ross said. “I have worked too hard and have too much to lose. I imagine if someone offered me $20 million . . . I wouldn't do it then anyway.”

clickFebruary 25, 2006 Bert Fields, the Hollywood superlawyer, who frequently employed Anthony Pellicano, and his law firm are in talks with prosecutors to try to avoid charges in the wiretapping investigation that has already led to the indictment of at least 13 people. Prosecutors are presenting Mr. Fields and his firm, Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman Machtinger & Kinsella, with what they say is evidence against them, and giving them an opportunity to respond. Both sides have agreed to suspend the normal statutory limitations that could prevent Mr. Fields and the firm from being prosecuted in connection with some of Mr. Pellicano's actions in years past. Other A-listers are also being actively investigated. Celebrity divorce lawyer Dennis M. Wasser, who has handled the marital breakups of Hollywood powerhouses like Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Spielberg, was the lawyer who government investigators say had steered Mr. Pellicano to the lawyer for Kirk Kerkorian, the Las Vegas mogul and former owner of MGM. Mr. Cruise, who has also been a legal client of Mr. Fields, was approached by F.B.I. agents at least twice.  More than half a dozen other prominent Los Angeles lawyers, meanwhile, have retained defense counsel in connection with the Pellicano case. They include Charles N. Shepard, the head of litigation at Greenberg Glusker; David S. Moriarty, a former Greenberg Glusker associate who worked on several cases in which Mr. Fields was the lead partner and Mr. Pellicano was the investigator; and Daniel G. Davis, a Beverly Hills criminal lawyer who gained fame in the 1980's representing the main defendant in the McMartin preschool child molestation case.

clickFebruary 25, 2006 FBI Agent Stanley Ornellas indicted, in federal documents, that his agency had obtained countless number of documents from their search of Pellicano's offices in 2002 that summarize phone calls that Pellicano had wiretapped for his celebrity clients. And those summaries, combined with testimony of Pellicano's former employees and others, establish that Pellicano wiretapped at his clients' behest.

clickFebruary 25, 2006: The federal Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 prohibits the willful interception of telephone communication by means of any electronic, mechanical or other device.  Most states have adopted similar laws, which have typically been extended to include in-person conversations. There are two exceptions to the OCCSSA: the business exception, which allows companies to monitor calls to maintain "quality control," and the consent exception, which makes it permissible to intercept and record a conversation if one or both of the parties consents to the recording. It is illegal in all jurisdictions to tape a conversation that you are not a party to. That's why Anthony Pellicano was indicted for racketeering and interception of electronic communications for wiretapping so many people.

clickFebruary 24, 2006: Pellicano is definitely an interesting character. He's like a Hollywood version of The X-Files' Cigarette Smoking Man, a guy with his fingerprints on everything. He made his bones as one of Richard Nixon's tape experts during Watergate. He's been involved in cases ranging from the JFK assassination to Steven Seagal's mob ties. When Michael Jackson got hit with the first of his pesky sex-abuse cases, Pellicano was the guy he hired to dig up dirt on the accuser's family. Pellicano was in the middle of the O.J. Simpson trial, the Heidi Fleiss trial, the Menendez brothers trial. He even worked for Judas Priest during the infamous subliminal-messages trial. Only one man can claim to be the connecting rod between the JFK cover-up and "Screaming for Vengeance," and that man is Pellicano.

clickFebruary 23, 2006 Some alleged victims of indicted private investigator Anthony Pellicano have already taken complaints to court.   The former wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian asked a Superior Court judge Wednesday to dismiss Kerkorian's attorney from her child support case because he has been indicted in the ongoing federal probe of private investigator Anthony Pellicano. A separate federal lawsuit was filed Feb. 17 by Erin Finn. Attorneys for the alleged wiretapping victim are seeking class-action status for the suit claiming SBC Communications was responsible for the actions of two employees accused of helping Pellicano acquire confidential information. "It was such a pervasive plan that we just don't believe it's credible for a phone company to say they have a rogue employee," said attorney Brian Kabateck, who represents Finn.

clickFebruary 22, 2006 The ongoing Pellicano case may be transferred to the federal court of Judge Fischer but defense attornies are arguing that it stay with Judge Takasugi, who is viewed as a more favorable judge for the defendants. **(website note: That's because he was the Judge who presided in the DeLorean acquittal where Pellicano's testimony undermined the prosecutor's tapes)**.

clickCLICKFebruary 22, 2006 Kevin Nealon was apparently wiretapped by Anthony  Pellicano but no one can really figure out why, including Kevin Nealon.

clickFebruary 22, 2006 Directly coming out of the Pellicano indictment in which two police officers have already been indicted, Los Angeles Councilman Weiss asked for a closed-door report from the LAPD and city attorneys on the policies surrounding outside employment for officers and the safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access to computers."The Pellicano case makes clear that there are a small number of law enforcement officers who succumb to temptation and abuse their badge," said Weiss, a former federal prosecutor.

clickclickclickFebruary 21, 2006 Terry Christensen, a longtime attorney for Kerkorian and the biggest name so far charged in the investigation of Pellicano entered a not guilty plea. Christensen's firm, best-known for representing entertainers such as Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Sean Connery and Kim Basinger, has said he was acting only to protect Kirkorian and the 4-year-old girl at the center of that case after both received death threats. Joann Wiggan, 52, a former SBC employee, also pleaded not guilty in connection with the Pellicano case.

clickFebruary 20, 2006 Pellicano has done work on behalf of law enforcement in the past, and those cases would be opened anew if it were found that he violated the law in the conduct of his business. And given that federal investigators are in receipt of an uncertain number of recorded conversations, all those being questioned have to answer knowing that they may face federal perjury charges if they are less than forthcoming. The problem is far more endemic than the lawyers or investigators. There are clients who want to win at all costs, and they are not necessarily interested in the Marquis of Queensbury rules of engagement. There is an enormous pressure to win.

clickFebruary 19, 2006While working for the LAPD, veteran detective Mark J. Arneson found a way to turn his police expertise into profits: He became a private eye. Arneson allegedly went too far — he was indicted this month with private investigator Anthony Pellicano on charges of illegally pulling private data from police computers. Pellicano allegedly paid Arneson $189,000 for his services. Arneson was suspended in 2003 and has left the department. But other officers do outside investigative work. Among large departments in the nation, Los Angeles is rare in allowing officers to moonlight without restriction as private detectives — a dangerous practice, say both police experts and officials in other cities.

clickclickclickFebruary 18, 2006 A wholesale lighting businessman from Valencia, George Kalta, became the 13th person charged in the ongoing federal investigation of Anthony Pellicano. Kalta was charged with paying Pellicano $75,000 to wiretap a teenage girl who had accused him of sexual assault. Kalta's attorney is Leslie Abramson. It continues to emerge that Pellicano used his dirty tactics on many who weren't famous or rich but simply interfered with his duties to his A-list clientele.

clickclickFebruary 17, 2006 During the messy public divorce of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Pellicano was on the case for Cruise. But unbeknown to Pellicano, DiSabatino was hired by Kidman. "So I put her on scramblers immediately," DiSabatino said. "So that, uh, if there was anybody who was eavesdropping, it wasn't gonna happen."  DiSabatino said that some of the ugly headlines that surfaced around that time weren't an accident. "What became very obvious was that he had a contact in one of the tabloids," he said. Actually, Pellicano had several tabloid reporters on the payroll.

clickFebruary 17, 2006 As word of attorney Terry Christensen's indictment spread across Los Angeles, lawyers made phone calls, swapped e-mails, and wondered whether the first indictment of a lawyer in the Anthony Pellicano case was a harbinger of more indictments to come. The Pellicano indictment has fueled intense speculation in legal circles about the investigator's relationships with prominent attorneys representing celebrities and other Hollywood figures. "Those of us who have never used the services of Mr. Pellicano are having badges printed that state: I have never retained Anthony Pellicano," said Marshall Grossman, a partner with Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan in Los Angeles.  Attorney Jan Handzlik, a partner in the commercial trial group in Howrey's Los Angeles office and Howrey partner Terree Bowers were retained by Christensen less than a month before the indictment.

clickFebruary 16, 2006 Pellicano looks like a bully and a creep, a far cry from the "tarnished knight" of our celluloid fantasies. Maybe, to us, he's more evocative of Gordon Liddy than Humphrey Bogart. But not to Pellicano. Even as he was allegedly bugging Keith Carradine's phone and running the DMV records of Kevin Nealon, Pellicano saw himself as a sacrificial lamb left to wander, alone, down Sunset Boulevard. Well sure, why not?   And what could be more Hollywood than believing your own hype?

clickFebruary 16, 2006 Sources close to the Pellicano investigation indicate that among the more interesting items found in the November 2002 raid on his West Hollywood office that triggered the wiretapping probe was a manila envelope labeled "Eisner." "Everyone wants to know what was in that file," says the Post's source. "The speculation is that whatever it was, it was embarrassing enough that [Michael] Eisner would not want it to become public." After Michael Ovitz had been at Disney for just over a year, Eisner granted him an astounding $140 million severance package that triggered a shareholder revolt and ultimately led to Eisner's own resignation. "There were supposedly three people present when that deal was negotiated: Eisner, his lawyer, and Ovitz," says our source. "Was there actually a fourth, namely, Anthony Pellicano? And if so, what was he doing there and why? To negotiate a settlement that large, that quickly, without any witnesses and a well-known thug and wiretapper present makes you wonder."

clickFebruary 16, 2006  As he goes on trial, Anthony Pellicano is threatening to come clean about his 20 years' protecting A-stars. And his secrets will lift the lid on seamy underbelly of Hollywood tales of sex, drugs and violence that some of his many famous clients relied on him to keep quiet with his own uncompromising of death threats and intimidation. At the centre of the case against year-old Pellicano are the thousands hours of illegal bugged phone conversations he is alleged to have made only of those he sought to discredit, but also of his star clients. Pellicano said from his cell: 'I don't rat on a client.' Despite this, rumours are rife that he is negotiating with the FBI to sell out those who employed him. Along with the over two million pages of transcripts of wiretapped conversations FBI agents found when they raided his offices in 2002, Pellicano has signed a six-figure deal with a publisher to sell his  story.

clickclickclickFebruary 16, 2006 The indictment of Christensen  and a subsequent anouncement  the next day revealed that federal prosecutors do, indeed, have taped conversations between  Anthony Pellicano and clients who hired him to dig up dirt on rivals. The biggest problem facing the three-year federal investigation of Pellicano and his work on behalf of attorneys was proving that the lawyers and other A-listers knew Pellicano was using illegal tactics to obtain information about opposing litigants. Apparently Pellicano tape recorded all his personal conversations with his clients and the federal investigators have all those records from their raid of Pellicano's offices in 2002.

clickclickclickclickclickclickFebruary 15-16, 2006 A grand jury indicted prominent Hollywood attorney Terry Christensen for allegedly hiring investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the ex-wife of billionaire and former MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian. Christensen is accused of paying Pellicano at least $100,000 to illegally eavesdrop on Bonder Kerkorian's conversations with her attorney, a court mediator and others to gain a tactical advantage in a legal dispute. Kirk Kerkorian is not implicated in the indictment, though sources said the underlying case involved a child support battle over Bonder Kerkorian's daughter, who Kirk Kerkorian was accused of fathering. "I know everything that's going on, and obviously they don't know I know," Pellicano is accused of telling Christensen on April 29, 2002, according to the charges returned by a grand jury in Los Angeles. "Nobody knows except you and me." Representatives of Christensen's firm, Century City-based Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro, denied the allegations. Jan Handzlik, a lawyer for Mr. Christensen, said that his client intended to plead not guilty to the charges. He said Mr. Christensen became involved with Mr. Pellicano when the investigator called him from "out of the blue" with information about threats to Mr. Kerkorian and his daughter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders said Christensen breached a fundamental ethical principle. The indictment unsealed Wednesday marks the first time that an attorney who used Pellicano has been implicated in the wiretapping scandal. The conspiracy and wiretapping charges filed Tuesday against Christensen and Pellicano amend the original indictment, adding to the dozens of counts facing Pellicano. The case is tentatively scheduled to go to trial April 4 before U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi.

clickFebruary 15, 2006Federal authorities have engaged in a far more extensive investigation than was previously known of the ties between Michael S. Ovitz, the former Hollywood power player, and Anthony Pellicano, the celebrity private detective who was indicted on federal wiretapping charges. Mr. Ovitz has been called before a grand jury to testify about his dealings and conversations with Mr. Pellicano, who pleaded not guilty to charges that were unsealed last week in a 110-count indictment. Government prosecutors have also examined Mr. Ovitz's legal fight with Cathy Schulman, a producer who once ran the film operation of his failed talent conglomerate Artists Management Group, and who sued him after leaving the operation in April 2002. According to a lawyer involved in the case, Ms. Schulman told F.B.I. agents in an interview in June 2004 of conversations in which Mr. Ovitz recounted to her details of her private discussions with major Hollywood figures as soon as a day after they had occurred, and told her that he had sources who could provide him with such information. One day after a secret meeting that she had had with the head of Universal Studios, Ms. Schulman told the F.B.I., Mr. Ovitz confronted her about the meeting. Ms. Schulman asked how he knew about it, to which Mr. Ovitz responded: "I have eyes and ears everywhere. There's nothing you can do that I won't find out about."

clickFebruary 15, 2006: Sherman, a lawyer for Pellicano in the weapons case, contends the Justice Department threw the new charges at Pellicano "to get him to turn on other people." Several Hollywood players have been drawn into the fray: Bert Fields, Brad Grey and Michael Ovitz.

clickFebruary 14, 2006A few years ago, Barresi, in his role as an investigator, helped Pellicano scare off a potentially damaging lawsuit against Cruise, thanks to his expert knowledge of the porn community. Now Barresi is helping Andrew Morton, the author of the tell all book about Princess Diana, to write a book about Tom Cruise's personal life.

clickclickFebruary 14, 2006Five clients and associates of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to sweeping allegations of a conspiracy of wiretapping and digging up dirt on people, including celebrities. Among those pleading not guilty were Mark Arneson, a retired Los Angeles police sargeant, Rayford Earl Turner, a retired telephone company employee, Robert Pfeifer, former president of Hollywood Records, software designer Kevin Kachikian, and Las Vegas businessman Abner Nicherie. Arraignment for Nicherie's brother, Daniel, was delayed. The defendants have a tentative April 4 trial date, but prosecutors clearly are hoping they can secure the help of at least some of the defendants in exchange for plea bargains. That already has happened with a former Beverly Hills police officer who allegedly ran searches for Pellicano and another former client, Sandra Carradine, the former wife of Keith Carradine.

clickFebruary 13, 2006  More than several of those wiretapped by Pellicano were in lawsuits against clients of Hollywood lawyer Bert Fields. The high-profile attorney may have supplied an answer--- at least fictionally --- in his 1992 roman-a-clef "The Lawyer's Tale." In the book, a lawyer named Harry Cain (who resembles Fields all the way down to cooking fajitas) hires a Pellicano-style private investigator named Cipriano. In a scene where Cipriano reads Cain "his detailed notes about every aspect of the wealthy builder's life," the attorney says, "Tell me more about the girl."
The private investigator replies, "He calls her two or three times a day from his office phone in between sessions. Don't ask me how I know. You don't wanna know." And Cain doesn't ask.

clickFebruary 12, 2006 The news that former private investigator Anthony Pellicano was indicted for allegedly wiretapping Hollywood journalists, among others, didn't surprise pop journalist, Charles Fleming. He was told that he was the subject of similar surveillance in late 1994 — by Don Simpson, the man who said he paid Pellicano to do it.

clickFebruary 12, 2006 Although the Pellicano's  tactics might seemingly put him at the fringe of the Private Investigator trade, the demand for his services came straight from the mainstream. For years, private lawyers and government prosecutors paid for his work. Whether in a criminal case or a messy divorce, personal information such as financial, criminal or even telephone records can help a lawyer build a case or destroy an opponent's. Most P.I.'s acknowledge that requests from clients can sink to the lowest depths.  Bill Pavelic, who retired from the LAPD in 1992, said he often entered law enforcement databases on behalf of private investigators when he was on the force. "That happens day in and day out," he said. "I don't believe there's a cop on the beat who has not accessed a police computer for some type of personal reason."  "Are there people in the LAPD, the Sheriff's Department, the courthouses selling information?" Pavelic asked. "There is no question the answer is yes."

clickFebruary 12, 2006: The  wiretapping indictment against Anthony Pellicano raises questions about those who hired him: What did they know and when? Or were they blissfully ignorant of his tactics?  Several of those wiretapped by Pellicano were in lawsuits against clients of Hollywood lawyer Bert Fields. The high-profile attorney may have supplied an answer-- at least fictionally -- in his 1992 roman-a-clef "The Lawyer's Tale." In the book, a lawyer named Harry Cain (who resembles Fields all the way down to cooking fajitas) hires a Pellicano-style private investigator named Cipriano.In a scene where Cipriano reads Cain "his detailed notes about every aspect of the wealthy builder's life," the attorney says, "Tell me more about the girl."The private investigator replies, "He calls her two or three times a day from his office phone in between sessions. Don't ask me how I know. You don't wanna know."And Cain doesn't ask.wiretapping indictment against Anthony Pellicano raised questions about those who hired him: What did they know and when? Or were they blissfully ignorant of his tactics?

clickFebruary 12, 2006Throughout the three-year federal investigation of Anthony Pellicano, the celebrity detective at the center of a huge Hollywood wiretapping scandal, the top-tier entertainment lawyer Bert Fields and his firm have insisted that they never knew their go-to investigator was secretly recording his targets' phone calls. But an indictment unsealed this week makes clear that Mr. Fields's firm, which frequently deployed Mr. Pellicano to dig up dirt on its legal opponents, also played a central role in his pursuit of a trademark for the very device the government says he was using to wiretap his targets: a combination of computer hardware and software he called, aptly enough, Telesleuth. Precisely what the firm knew about Mr. Pellicano's intentions for the Telesleuth device has been the subject of intense interest by prosecutors, however: a lawyer in the case confirmed that the government had subpoenaed documents arising from Mr. Pellicano's pursuit of the Telesleuth trademark, and that his lawyers had resisted handing over at least some of them.

clickclickFebruary 11, 2006 Lawyers for Anita Busch, a reporter who was threatened in 2002 — kicking off a three-year investigation of the private investigator Anthony Pellicano — confirmed on Friday that they had subpoenaed Michael Ovitz, the former talent agent, manager, and Walt Disney Company president, as a "person of interest" in their civil lawsuit against Mr. Pellicano, an unnamed client of his, and an unnamed law firm.  One of the lawyers, Brian Kabateck, said they had done so because "there seems to be a direct connection between Mr. Ovitz and the timing of the articles that Anita was working on and the other people that were being investigated" by Mr. Pellicano, the celebrity detective at the center of a huge Hollywood wiretapping scandal.  The names of Ms. Busch and a former reporter for The New York Times, Bernard Weinraub, were both run through law-enforcement databases by Mr. Pellicano on May 16, 2002, according to Monday's indictment of Mr. Pellicano and six other men. The two reporters had collaborated on several Times articles about Mr. Ovitz's troubles at Artists Management Group, which he had been forced to sell on May 5 of that year. Mr. Kabateck and a partner, Matt Geragos, also noted that on the same day prosecutors said Ms. Busch and Mr. Weinraub were checked by Mr. Pellicano, checks were also run against a nanny, Pamela Miller, and her parents; Ms. Miller was at the time involved in a lawsuit against a former employer who was represented by Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman, Machtinger & Kinsella.  "We see a connection with the lawyers, and we want to ask Mr. Ovitz about that," Mr. Kabateck said.  A lawyer for the Greenberg, Glusker firm rejected any notion of a connection between it or Mr. Fields and the Anita Busch threats. "While the firm may have historically done some work for Mr. Ovitz, neither the firm nor Mr. Fields was involved in any way in the Anita Busch matter," said Brian Sun, a criminal lawyer representing the firm.

clickFebruary 10, 2006:  Former Pellicano legman Paul Barresi says he personally "never used any illegal means" to gather information for his boss. But he says Pellicano definitely hungered for anything that might embarrass the "Rocky" star.   Barresi says Pellicano relished a 1991 tape on which Naomi Campbell allegedly pleaded with one of Stallone's security guards to have the actor call her. Pellicano wiretapped Stallone in February 2002 - the same month the actor sued his former business manager Kenneth Starr, whose attorney Bert Fields sometimes relied on Pellicano. (Fields has denied knowing of any wiretapping.) Barresi says Pellicano talked to him about Stallone in 2002, but suggests Pellicano's motive went beyond the Starr lawsuit.  "He would dig up dirt on any celebrity who might be a potential client," Barresi tells us. "Then he would tell the celebrities about the bad news floating around, and he'd get them to hire him for protection."

clickFebruary 10, 2006Pellicano forged relationships with law enforcement officers that helped back up his reputation as Hollywood's ultimate fixer. "These relationships were vital to Anthony," said a former associate. "As a P.I., you can only go so far getting information. And he had cop friends everywhere." Detectives. Prosecutors. Federal agents. He helped them. And as a still-unfolding FBI investigation suggests, some returned the favor by providing him with the kind of information that only someone in law enforcement can access. Though only two law enforcement officials have been indicted, sources say that many others have come under scrutiny. A the former Pellicano associate told The Los Angeles Times how he regularly had contact with about a dozen law enforcement officers throughout the region.  Pellicano also found work as a government witness as an expert in audiotape deciphering. "He tried to play both sides against the middle," Werksman, a Los Angeles defense attorney, said. "He would allegedly try to obtain things clients were not entitled to get. And on the other hand, he had the government hiring him because of his professed ability to analyze audiotapes as a result of his years of dealing with electronic surveillance."

clickFebruary 9, 2006 The city governments of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills could face enormous civil settlements in the fallout from the wiretapping prosecution of Anthony Pellicano because of the duplicity of at least two police officers, Mark Arneson and Craig stevens. Some legal experts are comparing it in stature to the Rampart scandal, which led to $70 million in payouts.

clickFebruary 8, 2006 A former president of Hollywood Records,  Robert Pfeifer, who was charged in a wiretapping case involving Anthony Pellicano, was ordered held without bail after the judge deemed him a flight risk.

clickclickFebruary 8, 2006 Targets of Pellicano's illegal investigations included Sylvester Stallone, the comedian Garry Shandling, the Hollywood actors Kevin Nealon and Keith Carradine, as well as a former Hollywood reporter for The New York Times, Bernard Weinraub, and two partners of the all-powerful Creative Artists Agency. Pellicano is also tried to discredit five women who accused the software millionaire John Gordon Jones of raping them. Mr Jones was acquitted, but a judge later awarded one of the alleged victims $6 million (£3.5 million) in damages, which she could not collect because the money had been moved offshore. However, the 110-count charge sheet against Pellicano remains silent on what embarrassing information was obtained,  how it was used and, perhaps most interesting of all, who paid for it. “We are not going to stop until we have discovered all of the illegal activities that (Pellicano) participated in,” Stephen Tidwell, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said.

clickFebruary 7, 2006 As authorities unsealed an indictment against Anthony Pellicano, the results for showbiz were an anti-climax: not enough stars, not enough dirt and not enough information.  The 60-page indictment charges Pellicano, former LAPD officer Mark Arneson and Rayford Earl Turner, a former Pacific Bell employee, with racketeering for allegedly participating in a criminal enterprise in which Pellicano paid tens of thousands of dollars to police officers to provide him with confidential information.  The indictment also charges that Pellicano and others were involved in wiretapping individuals Pellicano was hired to investigate. Four other defendants also were charged, including Kevin Kachikian, who developed Telesleuth, software used to listen in on phone calls. While the indictment concerns only nine instances of wiretapping, it is believed they are a small fraction of the wiretaps Pellicano conducted.

clickclickFebruary 7, 2006 Bertram Fields' name is nowhere in Monday's 60-page indictment of celebrity gumshoe and alleged wiretapper Anthony Pellicano. But the shadow of the 76-year-old lawyer, who for years employed Pellicano as an investigator, looms over the case. Fields, whose hardball legal tactics have made him a favorite of many studios and celebrities, has denied knowledge of any illegal activity although Pellicano worked on many cases for for well over a decade where he employed wiretapping, using a database that was restricted to law enforcement and exposing embarassing information on many of Fields' courtroom opponents that lead to a tactical advantage for the reknown barrister.

clickclickclickFebruary 7, 2006On Monday, prosecutors unsealed a 110-count indictment that accused Mr. Pellicano, along with six others with crimes that include racketeering and conspiracy, wiretapping, identity theft, witness tampering and destruction of evidence. The charges are the latest in what are expected to be continuing waves of charges stemming from the three-year investigation. Although none of the top Hollywood lawyers and movie executives were directly named, the government indictment strongly suggested that those who retained Mr. Pellicano were not entirely unaware of his actions. Mr. Pellicano was hired, the indictment said, "for the purpose of implementing illegal wiretaps," and gave his clients the contents of recorded conversations, which they used for several purposes "including securing a tactical advantage in litigation by learning their opponents' plans, strategies, perceived strengths and weaknesses, settlement positions and other confidential information."

clickFebruary 6, 2006 Anthony Pellicano pleaded not guilty to racketeering, interception of electronic communications and other offenses. Also charged were a Los Angeles police officer, a telephone company employee and four others. "These charges allege a disturbing pattern of criminal conduct in which money flowed freely to encourage sworn law-enforcement officers to violate their oath to uphold the law," acting U.S. Atty. George Cardona said. The indictment said the information gathered was used for threats, blackmail and in some cases to secure "tactical advantage in litigation." At least in some cases, Pellicano was hired by clients to collect the material, according to the indictment.

clickclickFebruary 6, 2006 After a three-year investigation, celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano and six others were charged today with racketeering and conspiracy to obtain confidential and embarrassing information about dozens of individuals. Pellicano, who pleaded not guilty to the 110-count federal indictment that was unsealed this morning, had just finished serving 30 months in prison on federal charges for storing explosives in his West Hollywood office. Pellicano is charged with organizing and masterminding a corrupt enterprise that allegedly wiretapped phones, entered private computers without authorization, committed wire fraud, bribery, identity theft and obstruction of justice for information needed by lawyers and agents representing A-listers.  "Defendant Pellicano was responsible for securing clients who were willing and able to pay large sums for the purpose of obtaining personal information of a confidential, embarrassing, or incriminating nature regarding other individuals, including opponents or witnesses in criminal or civil litigation who became the enterprise's investigative charges," the indictment says.

clickFebruary 6, 2006What’s at the center of the Pellicano indictment is that Fields often employed Pellicano as an investigator. In the Jackson case, much has been chronicled about Pellicano’s role as Fields’s operative. What’s always been extraordinarily interesting, Roger Friedman's sources have insisted for the last two years, is that the raid on Neverland on Nov. 18, 2003, coincided with Pellicano starting his prison term in a seemingly unrelated matter that week. Interestingly though, two weeks before Jackson’s arrest and Pellicano’s incarceration, Fields, according to Variety, “became the first lawyer to acknowledge that he had been interviewed by the FBI in connection with a wiretapping investigation of Pellicano.” Fields, it should be stressed, has always insisted he never knew about or authorized Pellicano’s wiretaps. Federal authorities have been so keen on Fields’ involvement with Pellicano that, on the eve of Pellicano’s new indictment, Fields’ home in Malibu was definitely being kept under surveillance.

clickclickFebruary 5, 2006FBI agents have quietly arrested a former music industry executive in connection with the wiretap and conspiracy prosecution of former Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano. Robert Joseph Pfeifer, 50, once president of Disney-owned Hollywood Records, was taken into custody Friday afternoon and held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles.

clickFebruary 3, 2006Anthony Pellicano was returned to Los Angeles from a federal prison near Bakersfield  to face new charges that he and others illegally used wiretaps and confidential law enforcement records to help his clients.

clickFebruary 2006: The investigation into the Gambino Mafia Family inevitably lead to Pellicano’s downfall. The Feds in New York indicted "Red"Scollo, the President of Local 1814 of the Longshoremen’s Union, along with Peter Gotti, brother of former Gambino Family Godfather John Gotti, Richard Gotti, Anthony Ciccone, and 13 other alleged members of the Gambino Family on charges that included racketeering, extortion, illegal gambling operations, and money laundering, all committed as part of the Mafia's corrupt influence over Local 1814 and Local 1 of the International Longshoremen's Union. The indictment mentioned the extortion of "an individual in the film industry," which would later turn out to be action star Steven Seagal.

clickJanuary 11, 2006Documents released yesterday officially link for the first time Tinseltown’s legendary entertainment lawyer Bert Fields to the Pellicano wiretapping case. Fields and his firm — Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman Machtinger & Kinsella — have admitted to using Pellicano’s services but denied knowledge of illegal wiretapping. Fields’s lawyer is white-collar specialist John Keker of San Francisco’s Keker & Van Nest, most recently in the news for defending now-convicted investment banker Frank Quattrone.

clickclickJanuary 11, 2006 The investigation of former Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano took a significant turn with the disclosure that his onetime girlfriend and a veteran Beverly Hills police officer have pleaded guilty to lying about the detective's use of wiretaps and other illegal tactics. The pleas by Officer Craig Stevens and Sandra Will Carradine, the ex-wife of actor Keith Carradine, offered the first confirmation in the 3-year-old federal investigation that authorities have evidence of Pellicano's long-suspected illegal use of wiretaps and confidential law enforcement records. The documents also provide the first official link between the Pellicano case and the law firm of one of Los Angeles' most prominent entertainment attorneys, Bert Fields.

clickJanuary 10, 2006 In the 3-year-old federal investigation, two associates of Anthony Pellicano have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an investigation into illegal wiretapping in Hollywood by the "private eye to the stars." Beverly Hills police Officer Craig Stephens, in a plea agreement, admitted selling confidential police data about four individuals to the detective. Actress Sandra Will Carradine pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury about Pellicano's wiretapping of her ex-husband, actor Keith Carradine.

clickDecember 21, 2005We might be hearing a lot more from Hollywood’s most notorious private eye. Anthony Pellicano — who has worked for Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, and Elizabeth Taylor — is planning to write a book, according to a source. Pellicano — who was sometimes called the  Thug to the Stars because he’d dig up dirt on his clients’ foes and was known for his rough and tumble tactics — is about to be released from prison, where he’s been serving time for illegal possession of firearms. The insider says that Pellicano’s publisher would be Michael Viner’s company, the same person who brought us the memoirs of New York Times fibber Jayson Blair.

clickNovember 23, 2005An NPR broadcast about when the FBI raided the offices of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano three years ago, they found enough explosives to take down a skyscraper and evidence that he might have been illegally wire tapping Hollywood conversations. The question is, what's on those tapes?

clickNovember 22, 2005According to a very high-level source close to the case, the first round of “several indictments” will be issued within weeks and will focus on the Tinseltown attorneys who allegedly hired Pellicano to secretly bug and wiretap their clients’ enemies and courtroom adversaries. “It’s all happening this week or the week after at the very latest,” claims the source. Another source—a witness who testified in front of the grand jury—says that the FBI contacted him over the weekend about the case and told him to “expect indictments to come down very soon.” Moreover, the Pellicano indictees have been informed that, unlike most defendants charged with white collar crimes, they will not have the opportunity to discreetly turn themselves in, we’re told. Instead, to guarantee maximum media impact, they will be arrested at their homes, offices, or favored power lunch spots and led away in cuffs in full view of their peers and the press. “They’re planning to do a series of takedown arrests to keep this firmly in public view,” says our source. “They want to show they mean serious business.”

clickNovember 17, 2005: Hollywood insiders expect the second round of indictments in celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano’s case to be the criminal equivalent of the Oscars. But don’t expect to hear too much about it from CBS News. Sources say the network recently killed an in-depth investigative special on Pellicano, whose former client, Brad Grey, is chairman of CBS sister company Paramount. We hear that CBS News show 48 Hours Mystery signed documentary filmmaker Sarah Teale in June 2004 to do an hour-long segment on Pellicano, who had been imprisoned after police discovered hand grenades, C-4 explosives, and over a million pages of wiretap transcripts—starring many of Tinseltown’s biggest names—in his West Hollywood office. The special was going to examine how Pellicano—Hollywood’s self-described “sin eater”—built his business digging dirt for such industry luminaries as Tom Cruise, Michael Ovitz, celebrity attorney Bert Fields, and Grey himself, who at the time was still running A-list management firm Brillstein-Grey. (Grey, who is also an executive producer of The Sopranos, was so impressed with Pellicano’s handywork he reportedly approached HBO with a series based on the P.I.’s life in 2001.)

clickNovember 6, 2005: Like most Hollywood executives these days, Brad Grey, the chairman of Paramount Motion Pictures Group, is tip-toeing as fast as he can from whatever relationship he may have had with Anthony Pellicano. The studio chief has said little publicly about how well he knew this now-infamous P.I.- to-the-stars -- who is near the end of a 30- month sentence for illegal possession of firearms and who may be in danger of more serious jail time in the not too distant future. But in at least one sense, Mr. Grey knew the details of Mr. Pellicano's life quite intimately. At the same time he was employing the detective, in 2001, Mr. Grey was pitching a TV drama based on Mr. Pellicano's adventures in Hollywood -- to HBO and perhaps other places as well.

clickOctober 30, 2005:  A facetious letter written to Pellicano on completion of his new novel while he was in prison.

clickOctober 28, 2005: Investigators initially opted for an easy conviction with pellicano much as the Bureau chose to nail Al Capone for tax evasion back in the 1930s when more serious charges could not be readily enforced. However, they continued to look into his activities and leaked reports of illegal wiretaps and extortion set off claims of victimization from a handful of entertainment celebrities and power brokers. The word on the street was that the FBI was going around town interviewing the likes of Mike Ovitz, Brad Grey and particularly Fields, who had employed Pellicano on more than one occasion. The was clear intent that the collection of more incendiary evidence would result in new charges once the first jail term expired. The private investigator's rumored strong-armed tactics and take-no-prisoners approach were legend in Hollywood. Yet, reports stopped short of exactly what extreme measures he employed to get people to desist from taking legal action to the courts. Don't ask, don't tell extends well beyond the confines of the military arena. Fields has taken the Inspector Renault defense from Casablanca of mock outrage about the gambling activity in the backroom. In this instance, he's shocked that Pellicano might have resorted to illegal surveillance or wiretapping to collect evidence. For a veteran attorney not to have questioned how evidence was collected or its authenticity seems like a considerable stretch. The law takes a dim view of turning a blind eye in this area.

clickOctober 24, 2005: Imprisoned celebrity sleuth Anthony Pellicano will likely be indicted on wiretap charges early next year, his lawyer said, bringing to a head a criminal probe that has touched several major Hollywood executives. The scope of such charges will determine whether federal prosecutors believe a rogue private eye took it upon himself to illegally bug private phone conversations or acted at the behest of powerful Hollywood clients willing to eavesdrop on their enemies. Pellicano's lawyer, Victor Sherman, told Reuters on Friday that his client would likely be named in a federal indictment returned before his 2 1/2-year prison term on federal weapons violations is up in February. He added that Pellicano was probably facing a wiretap charge, and that prosecutors were leaning on him to give evidence against others in the case.

clickOctober 22, 2005For two decades, Anthony Pellicano was known as "private investigator to the stars", mainly because "PI to the stars, their agents, lawyers, and studio heads" sounded unwieldly. But that was the scope of it. When Michael Jackson wanted dirt dug on the family of the boy who accused him of child molestation in 1993, he went to the Pelican. The same with the late, appetite-driven producer Don Simpson, when he had a spot of bother with a receptionist. Routine celebrity bin search? Pelican's your man. It may be painful, but you need to let go of the idea that Magnum was cinema vérité. Unless I missed the episode where Tom Selleck dons his Marigolds to separate Liz Taylor's used tissues from her empty Klonopin bottles. Unfortunately, during a recent investigation into critically misunderstood Under Siege actor Steven Seagal, Pellicano overstepped the line, warning off a journalist, and when the FBI raided his office they found - in addition to an arsenal which has already earned him a stint in jail - almost two billion pages of phone tap transcripts. The resultant grand jury investigation is now about to indict the industry figures they believe knowingly instigated wiretapping and witness tampering.

clickOctober 20, 2005: Mr. Ovitz has told federal investigators that he never hired Mr. Pellicano to conduct wiretaps, and, in fact, was unknowingly recorded by him, his lawyer said. Mr. Grey has been assured by the government that he is only a witness in the investigation, according to his spokesman. Spokesmen for Mr. Meyer at Universal and for Mr. Lourd and Mr. Huvane at Creative Artists declined to comment, as did Mr. Fields's lawyer. The lead prosecutor, Daniel Saunders, an assistant United States attorney, declined to comment.

clickOctober 19, 2005Now, as a three-year grand jury investigation draws to its close, prosecutors are in the final stages of assembling what is expected to be a racketeering case against Mr. Pellicano, according to people involved in or briefed on the case. The acts that Mr. Pellicano and others are expected to be accused of include wiretapping and witness tampering. But new charges against him -- and continued pressure on him to break his silence and testify against others -- appear all but inevitable, his lawyers say. ''They're definitely going to indict him on the wiretapping before he gets out,'' said Victor Sherman, one of Mr. Pellicano's criminal lawyers. ''November sounds right.'' Those questioned include, to name a few, Kevin Huvane and Brian Lourd, two top partners at Creative Artists Agency, the dominant Hollywood talent agency; Michael S. Ovitz, the onetime president of the Walt Disney Company who previously headed Creative Artists; Ron Meyer, the president of Universal Studios and a former partner at Creative Artists, who was called before the grand jury to discuss his friendship with Mr. Pellicano; Brad Grey, the chairman of the Paramount Motion Pictures Group, who formerly headed Brillstein-Grey Entertainment; and Bert Fields, the entertainment lawyer, who has said he employed Mr. Pellicano countless times as an investigator but was not aware of any wiretapping.

clickOctober 19, 2005: Anthony Pellicano, a onetime private detective to the stars now finishing a 30-month sentence on federal firearms charges, expects to be indicted again in weeks, his lawyers say. And with a parade of Hollywood power brokers -- lawyers, agents and executives -- having been called before a grand jury or questioned by federal agents, the industry is bracing for the possibility that the damage will not end with the disgraced former detective.

clickSeptember 29, 2005 Entertainment attorney Bert Fields’ law firm has hired a former federal prosecutor to represent its interests in a long-running wiretapping investigation involving imprisoned private detective Anthony Pellicano. Defense attorney Brian Sun confirmed Wednesday that he had been retained by Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman Machtinger & Kinsella. Sun declined to discuss his role. There has been no indication that the firm itself is a target of the investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported. But Sun’s hiring suggests that Fields, the renowned entertainment lawyer, remains of interest to the federal grand jury looking into Pellicano’s activities. Three years ago, the FBI said it was investigating allegations that Pellicano engaged in illegal wiretapping on behalf of various attorneys.

June 25, 2005: It appeared that Pellicano and the prosecutors were the only ones in the courtroom who could hear the incriminating evidence, and this came as no surprise to the Aisenberg team. 48 Hours hired its own audio expert, Jack Mitchell, to listen to the tapes. "It's almost as if it were just simply made up," says Mitchell, who has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. "There is no evidence whatsoever on any of these recordings that I have examined that will implicate the Aisenbergs in the disappearance of baby Sabrina. None." Mitchell has analyzed hundreds of tapes during his career, and is convinced that some of these voices may not even belong to the Aisenbergs. 48 Hours also played the tape to Perros, who could not understand any of the evidence. "It sounds like they had some type of technical problem with the application," says Perros. The damning evidence was nowhere to be found. "All lies, just all lies. We knew there was nothing on those tapes," says Marlene.

clickJune 17, 2005: Imprisoned former Hollywood PI Anthony Pellicano was charged by DA Steve Cooley with conspiracy and making threats against Busch. Busch sued Pellicano last year, and he has been linked to the threats before. She is the former Hollywood Reporter editor in chief. Alexander Proctor, a jailed addict accused of carrying out the threats for Pellicano, was also charged

clickJune 11, 2005A federal court has ruled that prosecutors can examine transcripts of wiretaps found in the office of a private detective, Anthony Pellicano, in a case that could involve some of Hollywood biggest stars. The ruling on Thursday, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, rejected Mr. Pellicano's argument that the search of his Hollywood office by F.B.I. agents in November 2002 was illegal and that evidence seized there could not be used against him. The court also confirmed his conviction on charges that he had unregistered firearms, grenades and plastic explosives in a safe in the office. He pleaded guilty in 2003 and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

clickMay 15, 2005:  Mr. Fields's hardball tactics haven't always been confined to angry missives. In November 2003 he was questioned by the F.B.I. about whether Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator for celebrity clients, had illegally wiretapped Mr. Fields's legal adversaries with his knowledge. (Mr. Fields has used Mr. Pellicano for years, including hiring him to work on Mr. Jackson's 1993 child molestation case.) ''It's been over two years and I haven't heard a thing,'' Mr. Fields said of the federal investigation. ''I'm not worried, since I didn't wiretap or use anything that had the slightest indication of being from a wiretap.'' A spokesman for the United States attorney in Los Angeles had no comment.

clickFebruary 27, 2005: Hollywood Boulevard was also home to the business of Anthony Pellicano, known as the 'human stain remover'. He used intimidation to ward off unwelcome queries about his clients, who included Sylvester Stallone and Michael Jackson.

clickclickFebruary 25, 2005: Supermarket magnate Ron Burkle sued Michael Ovitz on February 24, 2005, claiming the former agent has refused to honor his financial obligations to a joint venture the two started in 1998. According to an article in Vanity Fair last year, Michael Ovitz hired Anthony Pellicano to taptap Burkle's phones. When Burkle found out, he confronted Pellicano and told him that Ovitz was trying to renege on a business deal. Pellicano reportedly refused to work for Ovitz, saying, "When somebody owes somebody money, they should pay them."

clickFebruary 17, 2005: Journalist John Connolly and ex-Pellicano legman Paul Baressi believe that Michael Jackson himself may be behind the leaking of 1,903 pages of grand jury testimony on February 16, 2005, one day after he entered the hospital suffering from the flu. Jackson would just be following the strategy that Pellicano had taught him to let all the information out, no matter how damaging, since it's going to come out anyway, and use it to sway public opinion before the trial, possibly allowing his defense to call for  a mistrial.

clickFebruary 3, 2005: Luke Ford writes, "A month to the day that they came calling last time (when they knew I was not home), three men claiming to be cops came to my home and showed their phoney badges to my landlord and asked various questions about me and said they were trying to contact me (though they could never be bothered to call me). They claimed to be with the LA District Attorney's office. They didn't leave a business card. They just harassed my landlord again and left this name and number: "Ron Robinett. 213-974-3622." Interesting that this should happen just as I start writing again on disgraced private eye Anthony Pellicano."

clickJanuary 29, 2005: Dianne Dimond of CourtTV  said: of the grand jury leaks on the Michael Jackson case, “I can’t tell you where these leaks are coming from. I can tell you that there are people around Michael Jackson that do things on his behalf that are not necessarily very good for him….This is a felony to leak these grand jury documents but I think somewhere somehow someone around Michael Jackson may have thought ‘you know what? Like we did 10 years ago when Anthony Pellicano was around, let’s just throw it out there and get the shock value out’ ”.

clickJanuary 26, 2005: One of the lead FBI investigators on Pellicano has been in line to retire for a couple of years, but he's not going to quit until Pellicano and the people Pellicano has been protecting and wiretapping for are under indictment.These wiretap indictments, possibly against many of Hollywood's leading lawyers, could come out within weeks.

clickJanuary 26, 2005: Luke Ford's website was well known for information about Pellicano. His site was taken off the Internet suddenly and he was informed by his web host's attorney that they had received threats. The attorney went on to confide that Luke could get killed and that a more productive use of his time would be to write about "local politics".

clickJanuary 15, 2005: To combat the Aisenberg's expert witness, lead prosecutor Steven Kunz hired audio expert and private investigator , Anthony Pellicanor. Pellicano had a reputation for resorting to violence to get his way. Pellicano bragged in articles that were written about him, about getting people to talk to him with a baseball bat and slicing people`s faces. "A real fair word would be that he was just a real scumbag." The government stooped to hiring Tony Pellicano just shortly before he was indicted himself probably because Pellicano and the prosecutors were the only ones in the courtroom who could hear the incriminating evidence on the Aisenbergs.

clickJanuary 13, 2005: It appeared that Pellicano and the prosecutors were the only ones in the courtroom who could hear the incriminating evidence and this came as no surprise to the Aisenberg team's own audio expert, Jack Mitchell, to listen to the tapes. "It's almost as if it were just simply made up," says Mitchell, who has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. "There is no evidence whatsoever on any of these recordings that I have examined that will implicate the Aisenbergs in the disappearance of Baby Sabrina. None."fact, two judges appointed to review the prosecution's case found the Aisenberg tapes were "largely unintelligible." They called some of the statements false, and pure fiction. In a stunning blow to the prosecution, the recordings were ruled inadmissible.

clickJanuary 13, 2005: Pellicano used to tape record his own children when they were making what they thought were private calls and use the information to bully and abuse them. One of his daughters has refused contact with him for years. Therese DeLucio, the woman he married two days before going into prison, was a striptease dancer at a bar. They are presently divorcing.

clickJanuary 13, 2005: Oral arguments presented in Pellicano's appeal  at the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court in Pasadena (626)229-7250. The criminal hearing did not appear to be public. Normally, an appeal like this might never be heard or take up to a year to even be put on a court calendar. This was heard within two months, strongly implying that Pellicano and his counsel called on some of their political connections. A decision by the higher court will be rendered within three months.

clickclickJanuary 12, 2005: Well the LA TImes once again scoops everyone (not). This piece is remarkable in it's lack of use of both adjectives and adverbs, radically breaking the style so typically characteristic of this particular newspaper. It also contains a surprising number of real facts, another riveting departure for them. They finally report that Anthony Pellicano is having a judicial hearing on January 13, 2005 in an attempt to overturn the prior weapons conviction which he previously plead guilty to.

clickJanuary 3, 2005: Pellicano's kids told friends their father will be getting out of prison on January 13, 2005....most federal crimes dictate that you do all or most of the sentence. If Pellicano got a three year sentence he has not served even half of it yet,, so unless he rolling over on someone (one)  would be suspicious of an early release particularly with him.

clickJanuary 2005: Dianne Dimond of CourtTV describes the "Pellicano strategy". In recorded interviews from the Michael Jackson case in 1993, Pellicano openly bragged of his idea which he used repeatedly and effectively. His plan was if bad news was coming to get the news out ahead of the other side and also throw in some false stories. That way, he went on, everything can be dienied as malicious gossip and your client can be painted as the victim. Pellicano is considered by some to be the source of the leak of the Michael Jackson Grand Jury tapes in this CourtTV video.

clickNovember 30, 2004: Grand Jury Still Meeting in Pellicano Case.

clickNovember 19, 2004: The DAG named "Prosecutor of the Year" for 2004 in Los Angeles was recognized for her landmark work in "wiretap prosecutions" (details unspecified).

clickSeptember 24, 2004: Pellicano routinely used threats and blackmail to discourage people whom his clients didn't like. Pellicano himself told people this, he was proud of it. Pellicano routinely sold out clients and was recorded offering dirt on a celebrity client to a tabloid.  Defending Pellicano is like defending a member of the Gambino family. These aren't good guys who sometimes have to get tough. They're professional bad guys, proud of it, and take pains to make sure others know that of them.

clickclickSeptember 20, 2004: There have been others charged and convicted in Los Angeles for wiretapping in unrelated(?) cases in the entertainment industry.

clickSeptember 14, 2004: A CNN interview mistakenly referred to Baressi as a "private investigator" who used to work for Anthony Pellicano. Barresi is not a licensed P.I. and often asserts himself in situations which have a  "ka-ching"  factor, which is why he, no doubt, accepted $100,000 from the National Enquirer to expose his sexual relationship with John Travolta, and later accepted $25,000 from Scientology attorneys to deny the relationship ever occurred.

clickclickSeptember 13, 2004: Private detective Anthony Pellicano was hired by the Democrats in 1992 to squelch "bimbo eruptions" about Bill Clinton, and CBS accepted his assurances that the Gennifer Flowers tapes were fakes.

clickSeptember 12, 2004: In 1993 Pellicano testified that  everything he did in the Jackson case was under the direction of Fields.  In fact, in Jordie's civil suit Fields  filed a declaration by Pellicano in which the PI stated that he was hired by  Fields' law firm.  A few years  later, however, Fields testified that he never heard any tapes and that  Pellicano never worked for him.

clickSeptember 10, 2004: At the time of the Gennifer Flowers scandal, KCBS, the network's owned-and-operated affiliate in Los Angeles, took her tape and submitted it to private detective and forensic tape expert Anthony Pellicano for analysis. Only later was it learned that Mr. Pellicano had no formal training in evaluating tapes and was at the time being paid by Democratic sources to squelch "bimbo eruptions" surrounding Mr. Clinton.

clickSeptember 9, 2004: 10 years ago, Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon had a lot of evidence to go against Jackson. "He had child pornography, interviews with psychiatrists, and the tapes Anthony Pellicano made of the boy's father, which indicated no extortion demands, just a man who was very angry that his son had been abused," said Ray Chandler, referring to his brother (the father of the boy in 1993).

clickSeptember 3, 2004: Anthony Pellicano destroyed evidence in the 1993 Michael Jackson sex abuse scandal. In 1993, Robert Wegner, as chief of security at Neverland Ranch, was keeper of contracts signed by every visitor to Neverland -- including the kids who were sleeping in Michael Jackson's bedroom.  But police never saw those records, because at the same time that investigators were executing a search warrant, Wegner says Anthony Pellicano phoned him personally and told him to get the records of who had been at Neverland, and deliver them to Pellicano in Los Angeles and delete all computer files pertaining to those records. Wegner stated "In fact he called me while I was in Michael's bedroom when LAPD was searching his bedroom he called and told me to do this, because he wanted them out of there before LAPD saw -- figured that they should subpoena those." Several investigators involved felt that Neverland had been sanitized before the search warrant was actually served and that somebody had tipped off Jackson's P.I., Pellicano.

clickSeptember 3, 2004: Update on Pellicano Involvement in 1993 Michael Jackson Sex Abuse Allegations.

clickSeptember 2004: Some tabloid writers attribute Singer's insider knowledge to his employment of Anthony Pellicano. One longtime tabloid editor, who says he dealt with Singer "thousands of times, about twice a week for years,"  The editor adds that he spoke to Pellicano "about once a month since the early '80s" and estimates that the private investigator was teamed with Singer on "about 50 percent of the celebrity cases, but it's hard to say whether they were working together because Pellicano is such a rogue." He likens the PI's approach to that of a "hoodlum" who would bark, "Don't run that fucking story!" Federal investigators say that Pellicano, along with some top Hollywood lawyers, as yet unnamed, who employed him, will soon face additional charges for illegal wiretapping. Singer now distances himself from Pellicano. At first he claims, "I've never, ever worked with Anthony on any case involving a tabloid or a media issue,"  When pressed, though, he concedes that he has employed the private investigator, who, he says, did "a tremendous job in getting results. Pellicano worked with me on a few cases, maybe a half-dozen cases over ten years.... Why would you use a private investigator to try to kill a story? I've been doing this for 20 years, dealing with the tabloids, and I have a practice that's been effective.... I'm not going to discuss how I do things, because that's the reason people come to me rather than other lawyers."

clickJuly 31, 2004: Impressions of Pellicano written by someone who claims to have been his friend.

clickJuly 21, 2004: The actions of federal prosecutors in Aisenberg case and their expert audio examiner, Anthony Pellicano, ruled protected by "absolute immunity, even if tainted by ill will or ineptitude".

clickJune 4, 2004: Third plaintiff files suit against Pellicano relating to his investigative activities.

clickclickclickJune 2, 2004Geragos firm represents Anita Busch in lawsuit against Anthony Pellicano and the law firm connected to him, LAPD Detective Mark Arneson, Alexander Proctor, SBC Communications and the City of Los Angeles. She claims that Pellicano and the private eye's "ring of co-conspirators" were behind a series of well-publicized threats that "traumatized her and brought her illustrious career to a halt."

clickJune 1, 2004: Anita Busch sues Anthony Pellicano in Civil Filing.

clickMay 30, 2004: Geraldine Hughes, an employee of the Chandler's original attorney who admitted to being bribed by Pellicano to provide the Michael Jackson camp with information and documents relating to the Chandler's legal case against MJ while it was in progress.

clickclickMay 3, 2004: Pellicano Authors New Book "Life Under the Stars" for $500,000 up front.

clickclickMarch 31, 2004: Jeffrey Wells, a journalist, while investigating Columbia Pictures executive Michael Nathanson, who was involved in the Heidi Fleiss scandal, had his phone tapped by private eye Anthony Pellicano. Pellicano conducted a thorough background search on Wells, looking for any information to discredit him but found nothing. In 1993, Wells also had written two pieces trashing Schwarzenegger in "Last Action Hero" which appeared in the LA Times and Entertainment Weekly.

clickclickclickMarch 23 & 24, 2004Brockovich, Masry and Pellicano named in new wiretap lawsuit.

clickMarch 16, 2004Gennifer Flowers Defamation Suit Tossed.

clickMar 16, 2004:  Anthony Pellicano had the power to influence the outcome of LAPD investigations. He was said to have offered that for a price — "$100,000 for starters" — he could reach out to "people inside" a Los Angeles Police Department illegal gambling investigation and "make a deal to help things go away". The suspension of Det. Mark Arneson, a 29 year veteran of LAPD who had been on Pellicano's payroll at least since the mid 1990s, followed discovery that Arneson had tapped into confidential LAPD databases to provide Pellicano with information many times.

clickMarch 9, 2004: Ami Shafrir, a Los Angeles businessman, was conned by Daniel and Abner Nicherie out of tens of millions of dollars worth of businesses, property and cash, and was wiretapped in the process by private detective Anthony Pellicano. The Nicherie brothers paid Pellicano $154,000 to wiretap Shafrir three years before Pellicano was even under federal investigation. The Department of Labor, FBI and IRS are probing the Pellicano scam and wiretaps of Shafrir. Daniel Nicherie has been arrested as is being held without bail.

clickMarch 4, 2004: Pellicano Allegedly Bribes Grand Jury Member. **court documents

clickMarch 2004: Vanity Fair quotes ex wife #4, Kat Pellicano, that after the first Michael Jackson sex molestation scandal broke, "Anthony wanted to get Michael out of the country as soon as possible".

clickMarch 2004: Vanity Fair article about Pellicano that's the best summary to date and well worth the reading.

clickFebruary 27, 2004: Fox news reports that Pellicano very likely wiretapped Michael Jackson and set aside information about him as well as other celebrity clients for a rainy day. It's possible that Pellicano gave material about Jackson to the FBI.

clickFebruary 25, 2004: Pellicano was fingered by Dick Morris as a member of the White House Secret Police, Pellicano is accused of having a role in intimidating Kathleen Willey, a witness in the Paula Jones lawsuit, who eventually testified to having been groped by Bill Clinton shortly after her husband’s suicide. Pellicano first came to wide public notice as the “audio expert” who “discredited” the tape recordings of intimate conversations between Gennifer Flowers and Bill Clinton, during the 1992 campaign for President.

clickFebruary 25, 2004: Pellicano snitched on clients according to tapes, made by reporter Jim Mitteager (the Globe's Los Angeles Bureau Chief) before his death in 1997, and played by KCBS-TV, Pellicano is heard offering to provide dirt about some of his clients in return for an agreement from the reporter to kill a story about others that Pellicano apparently looked upon more favorably.

clickFebruary 22, 2004: Part lll in the tapes of Pellicano recorded by reporter Mitteager before his death in 1997, released to the public by Paul Baressi and aired on KCBS-TV.

clickFebruary 14, 2004: Law Offices of Lavely & Singer hired Anthony Pellicano on a number of matters. It has been recently exposed in a KCBS News Investigative Report that Pellicano sold out Lavely and Singers clients to the tabloids.

clickFebruary 13, 2004: Pellicano tapes with Mitteager, part ll, in which Pellicano sells out his clients, controls media reporters through bribes as well as intimidation.

clickFebruary 12, 2004: Tapes, made by reporter Jim Mitteager before his death in 1997, which were given to his friend, Paul Baressi were aired publicly by KCBS-TV in a 3 part series. On the tape, Pellicano appears to have a long working relationship with the newspapers (Globe), planting stories, paying for sources and keeping his clients in and out of the headlines.

clickFebruary 11, 2004: Luke Ford profile of Pellicano to this date. Absolutely a must read!! 

clickFebruary 10, 2004: A former Ku Klux Klansman, Thomas Blanton Jr., convicted in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four African-American girls may succeed in getting his conviction overturned because Pellicano's assertions about a 40 year old tape were critical in the prosecution's case. Blanton's argument goes beyond the fact that Pellicano is now a convicted felon currently serving time in federal prison for illegal weapons possession. It addresses that Pellicano, in a recent court ruling, apparently fabricated transcripts in the Aisenberg criminal case and is under investigation for illegally wiretapping Hollywood figures. It was only after Pellicano's "enhancement" of the 40 year old of Blanton that a third voice was heard in a discussion between Blanton and his wife which allowed admission of the tape as evidence since it no longer violated the husband-wife marital exception.

clickFebruary 6, 2004: The qualifications of the government’s expert in the Aisenberg murder trial, Anthony Pellicano, starkly contrasted with Koenig’s for the defense. Pellicano only received his high school equivalency while serving in the military and never obtained advanced schooling. Although Pellicano stated that he was able to hear the Aisenbergs’ conversations set out in the county detectives’ applications, Koenig, the district court, and the magistrate judge could not.

clickFebruary 4, 2004: Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator who claimed to be an expert in clarifying distorted audio tapes, admitted in a Florida court that he had no training in the field. Pellicano went on to say further in that court that he had no scientific education and didn't understand the science of his findings even though he presented himself in a quite different light as president of Forensic Audio Lab and an electronics specialist.

clickFebruary 4, 2004: The California Department of Consumer Affairs revoked the licenses of Los Angeles-based private investigator Anthony Pellicano after he had already been in federal prison for over three months. The revocation of Mr. Pellicano’s private investigator’s license and the license of his agency, Pellicano Investigative Agency, Ltd., was effective Feb. 2, 2004. Mr. Pellicano had been a licensed private investigator in California since 1983.

clickFebruary 1, 2004: Anthony Pellicano was fond of saying he would go to great lengths to solve his clients' problems - even if it meant whacking somebody with a baseball bat, shredding someone's face with a knife or resorting to blackmail. Over the years, Pellicano collected as much as $350 an hour from the government and was paid tens of thousands of dollars in some cases. Pellicano produced enhanced tape recordings and transcripts that bolstered the government's case in all instances. In a resume from the 1970s, Pelllicano said he had been trained by military intelligence personnel in highly sophisticated audio surveillance procedures and countermeasures. In the early 1990s, Pellicano demonstrated to a Times reporter how an innocent conversation could be altered to appear incriminating or embarrassing. He was retained by law enforcement agencies, District Attorneys and United States Attorneys, as well as private and public defense attorneys throughout the country. Before he was arrested on the explosives charges, many prosecutors were full of praise for Pellicano, as evidenced by a stack of letters in his court file. Re had presented the letters as evidence of Pellicano's good character in arguing that he should be released on bail.

clickclickFebruary 1, 2004: Profile of Pellicano's many accomplishments in expert witnessing about wiretap in famous cases.

clickFebruary 2004: Celebrity lawyers who used Anthony Pellicano are being investigated by the FBI and testifying before the Federal Grand jury still probing Pellicano's use of illegal wiretap and other unorthodox methods.

clickFebruary 2004: Evan Chandler, the father of the boy in the 1993 Jackson sex scandal says he got attacked by an unknown cameraman in the lobby of the building where his dentist's office was. A disturbed female fan of Jackson's who had flown over from England made death threats to the family, and even made it thru the front door of Chandler's house before Ray Chandler , an uncle, called the police, after which the woman was deported. Once, the boy and his housekeeper were nearly run down by a car, which then also came at them in reverse. There were other terrorizing tactics, which the family suspected, but could not prove, Anthony Pellicano was behind. (At the time, Pellicano's lawyer would not respond.)

clickJanuary 24, 2004: Pellicano Sentenced to 2 1/2  Years after Attempting to Withdraw His Plea on the Grounds that His Weapons were "Homemade".

clickJanuary 23, 2004: The private Hollywood investigator and central figure in a federal wiretapping investigation, Anthony Pellicano, was sentenced  to 30 months in prison on an unrelated weapons charge.In issuing the sentence, Judge Dickran M. Tevrizian Jr. of federal District Court here rejected defense pleas that Mr. Pellicano had no money and fined him $6,000.

clickJanuary 23, 2004: Department of Justice Press Release on Pellicano's sentencing.

clickclickJanuary 16, 2004: In federal court documents filed January 12, 2004, the prosecutors said Anthony Pellicano had a file that included a physical description, license plate number and home address of Los Angeles Times  reporter Anita Busch. Prosecutors said investigators also seized from Pellicano's office in 2002 a file labeled "Stephen Seagal matter," which included an article Busch had helped write about the actor.

clickclickJanuary 14, 2004: The Disney squabble between chairman MIchael Eisner and superagent Michael Ovitz continues. Ovitz hired Pellicano for 'security' and received an estimated $150,000,000 severance settlement when he was fired by Eisner after only one year in 1996. Vanity Fair journalist, Dominic Dunne, reported on the legal battle that ensued. Federal investigators now plan to question Ovitz about whether jailed private detective Anthony Pellicano performed any wiretapping for him in the past.

clickJanuary 6, 2004: "All he would do is intimidate," said private investigator Ernie Rizzo about Anthony Pellicano, both met when working in Chicago in the early 1970s. L.A. lawyer Leslie Abramson, whose client had a business dispute with Pellicano, said the detective's undoing was only a matter of time: "He was a little man who tried to be a big man, and he tried to do it like they do in the movies--with braggadocio."

clickJanuary 4, 2004: Pellicano was the audio recording "expert" hired by Hillary Clinton to analyze taped conversations between then-President Clinton and Gennifer Flowers. Pellicano falsely claimed the tapes were "selectively edited" by Ms. Flowers. Ultimately, of course, the recordings were found to be 100% authentic. Pellicano, who is known as the "investigator to the stars" was in the habit of illegally wiretapping his targets. Many in Hollywood, and in Washington, are concerned about what these tapes might reveal.

clickclickJanuary 2004: Book published "Redemption" details how Pellicano's testimony was critical to dismissal of Michael Jackson's child sexual abuse allegations in 1993.

click2004: Mark Fuhrman was a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department who found the bloody glove that linked O. J. Simpson to the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson. During the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the defense accused Fuhrman of being a racist and planting evidence. Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator for Fuhrman, stated in the Washington Post (August 22, 1995), "Fuhrman's life is in the toilet. He has no job, no future. People think he's a racist. His life is ruined. For What? Because he found a key piece of evidence."

clickDecember 28, 2003Anthony Pellicano was with Michael Jackson in 1993 when news broke that police were searching Neverland. Evan Chandler had made an allegation that Jackson had abused his 13-year-old son Jordy. The day after the allegations surfaced, Pellicano (who had worked for Jackson for years as a security consultant) held press conferences where he produced boys who said they'd spent time with Jackson without anything untoward happening. He also tried to discredit Evan Chandler, claiming the allegations were a simple attempt to extort money from Jacko. When Farah Fawcett  was beaten up by her ex-boyfriend James Orr in 1997, who was later convicted of misdemeanour and battery, Pellicano ripped up photos of her bruised bottom in case the tabloids got hold of them. But when a court later blamed Farrah for causing the fight in a jealous rage, he spun the story back to domestic violence: `Farrah truly hopes she sends a positive message to all battered women,' he said.  In 1998 photographs surfaced of Jerry Springer having sex with two women. Pellicano was hired to find out how Jerry had been secretly videotaped and the tape was never seen again. He managed to spin the story as an infringement of Springer's privacy.

clickclickDecember 26, 2003FBI agents questioned Kat Pellicano as part of the investigation into whether her former husband Anthony Pellicano illegally wiretapped people, including Hollywood celebrities; authorities also want to know whether lawyers and entertainment figures who hired Pellicano were complicit in alleged wiretapping; Kat Pellicano refused to talk to FBI but is rather seeking a publisher for tell-all book. She says she knows intimate details of his business.

clickDecember 19-25, 2003:  Pellicano was known to play both sides.  A transcript from the LA DA from the Gordon Jones multiple date rape case reveals Pellicano’s penchant for playing both sides of the fence. Pellicano says in this transcription, “I do more favors for the Police Department, for her department [D.A.’s Office], than you can imagine”. The first federal investigation into Pellicano's use of wiretapping was begun and may have been dropped in 1999. Court documents and police records reinforce the notion that prosecutors knew about the illegal wiretaps in 1999. Jim Crogan writes "What’s not so easy to figure out is why prosecutors and defense attorneys would work with him on the same case."

clickDecember 11, 2003: The widening criminal investigation into Anthony Pellicano is subject to secret grand jury hearings, so the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not officially commenting. Bert Fields, has hired his own criminal defense lawyer and has gone on the record to insist he never authorised Pellicano to do anything illegal on his behalf.

clickDecember 11, 2003: FBI probe Pellicano's wiretapping DA and police in Los Angeles. A 30-year Los Angeles police veteran suspended for allegedly using government databases to give information to Pellicano.

clickclickDecember 11, 2003: Anthony Pellicano may have eavesdropped on at least two deputy district attorneys, a Los Angeles police detective and an alleged rape victim. "Such illegal wiretapping puts lives of innocent victims and witnesses in jeopardy. It impedes the ability of dedicated men and women in the District Attorney's Office and in law enforcement to seek the truth," Los Angeles DA Cooley said. "It is time for straight talk by federal authorities on this troubling issue." Federal investigators are also looking into whether Pellicano also illegally listened to conversations between high-profile attorneys and their celebrity clients. The wiretapping probe involving county prosecutors may be related to the prosecution of John Gordon Jones, a wealthy businessman who was acquitted two years ago of charges that he drugged and raped women he met at nightclubs, Pellicano was hired by Jones' defense team. FBI agents have questioned dozens of people regarding Jones' case, including Los Angeles police Detective Timothy Marcia and Deputy District Attorney Karla Kerlin. Two of Jones' lawyers, Daniel Davis and Ronald Richards, have said that Pellicano secretly recorded Jones without their permission. Last month, attorney Bert Fields, who has represented Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner and other A-list celebrities, told the Times that FBI agents questioned him about what he knew of Pellicano's activities.

clickDecember 8, 2003:  Given the accusations against private investigator Anthony Pellicano, the practice of wiretapping execs and celebs in Hollywood in order to get the dirt may be more widespread than even the most paranoid publicist could have imagined.

clickDecember 2003:  FBI probes Pellicano's work for Jones, the businessman accused of slipping 'date-rape' drugs to 9 women he met in Hollywood nightclubs which was prosecuted by LA County DA Cooley and lost.. The Federal investigation into Pellicano began during Federal tracking of Mafia involvement in the Waterfront operations on the East Coast in 2001.

clickNovember 26, 2003:  Private investigator Ernie Rizzo - who worked for the family of the 13-year-old who accused Jackson of molestation in 1993 - thinks Jackson's team will make good on their threats with "terror tactics." "That's what he did last time," Rizzo said. "He'll send out his goons." Led by recently jailed private eye Anthony Pellicano, they bugged phones, put electronic tails on cars, spread rumors and sabotaged press conferences, Rizzo said."This whole family is in for something terrible," he said of Jackson's new accuser.

clickNovember 23, 2003: Mary Matalin, now a senior advisor to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney stumbled across the Clinton-Pellicano link while she was political director for President Bush's 1992 reelection campaign."I got the letters from Pellicano to [various women linked to Bill Clinton] intimidating them," Matalin said in 1997, when she was the host of her own nationally syndicated talk show on the CBS Radio network. "I had tapes of conversations from Pellicano to the women. I got handwritten letters from the women...I got one letter from one of the women's dad's saying, 'This is so horrible. Here's what they're going to do to us,'" . Matalin wasn't the only one who knew about the Clinton's employment of Pellicano. In fact, before Pellicano's name became politically toxic, his identity had been widely reported. "Shortly after the [Monica Lewinsky] scandal broke, Lucianne Goldberg was in her office in New York when, she says, she got a call from David Kendall, Clinton's lawyer on Whitewater matters," reported Newsweek's Michael Isikoff in 1998. "Kendall, a gentlemanly lawyer, politely asked Goldberg if he could send someone by her New York apartment to pick up her tapes of her conversations with Linda Tripp. "Goldberg was furious. A few days earlier, one of her famous clients had already been approached by Anthony Pellicano,   seeking information about the tapes. The detective had said that he was 'working for Clinton.'" New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's Washington attorney David Kendall denied that  Anthony Pellicano ever worked for the Clintons.

clickclickNovember 22, 2003: Summary in NY Daily News of Michael Jackson history

clickNovember 20, 2003: Dianne Dimond's involvement in the Pellicano wiretapping case has put her in the uncomfortable position of being both a subject and a reporter on a continuing investigation. Should she be called before the grand jury, Dimond would likely have to abstain from reporting on the Pellicano case.

clickNovember 20, 2003: After Anthony Pellicano began serving time in federal prison Pellicano Investigative Agency still advertising on Internet  claiming that "We are equipped to obtain the essential information which may make the difference between winning or losing and, losing is not an alternative I accept."

clickNovember 20, 2003: After the Search of Pellicano's Offices

clickNovember 19, 2003: Anthony Pellicano was used by the Jackson people to harass the Chandler family in 1993. Evan Chandler, the father was beaten up. Authorities could never find out who was responsible for the brutal attack.

clickNovember 19, 2003: A longtime Pellicano foe, North Shore-based private investigator and Court TV contributor Ernie Rizzo, explained the main reason for the Jackson raid the day after Pellicano voluntarily surrendered to begin serving his sentence prematurely in federal prison. According to Court TV and Rizzo's police sources, the sheriff's officials were searching for DNA evidence of at least one alleged sexual encounter between the entertainer and the boy in a bedroom on a sheet at Neverland Ranch.

clickNovember 19, 2003: Ian Drew, a reporter for "Us Weekly." spoke with Jackson a few days  before the 2003 raid on Neverland and Jackson had an idea that what was happening was an offshoot of Anthony Pellicano's case at the time.

clickNovember 19, 2003: Bert Fields is using the same criminal attorney, Donald Re, in the federal wiretap investigation that Anthony Pellicano is using.  Prosecutors would ideally need an admission or physical evidence to prove that Pellicano was instructed by his employers to conduct illegal wiretaps on entertainment industry figures. Short of that, the case would be one of inference.

clickclickNovember 19, 2003: Pellicano married to Teresa DeLucio in Las Vegas the Saturday before he surrendered at federal prison. "I've known Teresa DeLucio a long time. Over the last three months we got very close. She wants to take care of me when I come out and wants to care for me while I'm in. I'm grateful."

clickNovember 18, 2003: Coincidence noted in group discussion on Google between Pellicano going to prison and Neverland being raided on suspicion of child abuse allegations the next day.

clickNovember 18, 2003: Federal prosecutors think that the prominent lawyers and entertainment industry figures who hired Pellicano either authorized his activities or knew of them in advance. FBI agents are reportedly questioning superstar Warren Beatty and comedian Gary Shandling who are allegedly thought to have been targets of the bugging, according to published reports.

clickNovember 18, 2003: "I was positive my phones were tapped--I heard lots of clicking and crackling noises ... and then my words started coming back to me through others," Court TV anchor Diane Dimond replied on being informed that wiretaps on her phone dating back to the early 1990s are part of evidence seized by the FBI from the computer of private eye Anthony Pellicano.

clickNovember 17, 2003: Anthony Pellicano gives an exclusive interview to Chuck Philips of the LA Times the day prior to surrendering for felony weapons possession. Philips once more comes thru for his old friend and reassures everyone that the P.I. will never snitch on his celebrity clients to the FBI.

clickNovember 17, 2003: Anthony Pellicano, two days before reporting to prison, was married during a small weekend ceremony in Las Vegas. He had to obtain special permission to leave California for the wedding. Pellicano and Teresa Ann DeLucio exchanged vows Saturday at a chapel in the Bellagio Hotel. It was the fifth marriage for the 59-year-old private eye and the first for DeLucio, 42.

clickNovember 17, 2003: Pellicano began serving time in federal prison in California voluntarily ahead of his official sentencing.

clickNovember 16, 2003:  The first LAPD officer implicated in the case, Sgt. Mark Arneson, was allowed to quietly retire with a full pension early last month (10/03), but is still being investigated by the district attorney for having pilfered information about celebrities from police computers for Pellicano, according to a police spokesman, Lt. Art Miller.

clickclickNovember 14-20, 2003:  The Pelican Briefs  **excellent summary. The players in the Pellicano saga include a variety of characters: Bergman was the investigative producer on contract to 60 Minutes for 16 years until he found himself caught in the buzz saw when CBS buckled to corporate pressure and pulled the plug on a story from a whistleblower about the Brown & Williamson tobacco company. Bergman has been the behind-the-scenes driving force of the NYT’s articles about Pellicano. Another integral player is FBI special agent Stan Ornellas, who helped get to the bottom of the Busch threat case. Finally, there’s Bert Fields, the Century City entertainment attorney whose nonstop lawsuits against Disney have earned him the nickname “The Exterminator.” 

clickNovember 14, 2003: Pellicano routinely hired LAPD detectives and other police officers to work off-duty on his investigations and security operations. One law-enforcement source said, "He was well known inside our department. ... It was good money, and Pellicano worked for a lot of powerful people in Hollywood." Ernie Rizzo, a Chicago PI, told the Daily News' Jim Crogan: "Pellicano hired two LAPD detectives to shadow me when I was working for the father of the boy who claimed Michael Jackson had molested him." Pellicano was then working for the pop icon. Rizzo said Pellicano also used cops as bodyguards for his famous clients, who are said to have included Kevin Costner, Mike Myers, Farrah Fawcett and Priscilla Presley.

clickNovember 13, 2003: More than a year before FBI agents raided Anthony Pellicano's offices in West Hollywood, the FBI was focusing on Pellicano long before a botched attempt to intimidate a Los Angeles Times reporter last year drew attention to the  private investigator and the prominent lawyers who have employed him. In at least one case stemming from a dispute over control of a $40-million Internet business, the FBI was told in 2001 that Pellicano had secretly recorded one of their Los Angeles agents. The case which dated back more than two years.pitted Daniel and Abner Nicherie against Ami Shafrir in a complicated business dispute over control of a company that provided Internet Web sites for movies and other uses. Pellicano worked for the Nicheries. Court records and interviews show that Pellicano had secretly recorded conversations that Ami Shafrir had held with his lawyers and with others, including an FBI agent. Abner Nicherie met with Anthony Pellicano in Luckman Plaza on a regular basis beginning in the fall of 2000 to  to review recent recordings of conversations that Mr. Pellicano had made. Court records show Pellicano was paid $154,000 by the Nicheries for his services.

clickNovember 13, 2003: Pellicano and Winnie the Pooh?

clickNovember 13, 2003: The story behind the origins of the reports about Pellicano discovering the exhumed remains of Liz Taylor's ex husband, Mike Todd.

clickNovember 13, 2003: There's this fear that what started with Anthony Pellicano is going to threaten the upper echelon of entertainment lawyers and it could get even bigger than that if it turns out that their clients knew that Anthony Pellicano was doing wiretaps on their behalf. The pre-eminent entertainment lawyer, Bert Fields, who's represented everyone from Michael Jackson, to Warren Beatty to Dustin Hoffman to Jeffrey Katzenberg, has already acknowledged that the FBI, has spoken to his clients about the wiretaps.

clickclickNovember 13, 2003: Pellicano is under contract to publish a novel and write a screenplay for New Millennium Entertainment. (301 North Canon Drive Suite 214, Beverly Hills, California, United States, 90210, (310) 273-7755) Projects are likely to draw upon Pellicano's work for star clients like Michael Jackson, Roseanne Barr and Sylvester Stallone... According to published reports, producer Bo Zenga has testified before a grand jury that he was the subject of an illegal wiretap in connection with a breach of contract case he pursued against Brillstein-Grey involving profits on "Scary Movie." Fields served as attorney for Brillstein-Grey in that case.

clickNovember 12, 2003: Though Burt Fields, Edward Masry and Howard Weitzman all deny knowing of Pellicano's wiretapping Dianne Dimond's commented that  "It surprises to me -- well, I guess it doesn't surprise me when Bert Fields and Howard Weitzmann (ph) and all the rest of them say, we had no idea Anthony Pellicano did this. Well, all of Hollywood knew." More importantly for her was how Pellicano terrorized and threatened her sources, " I had a lot of people who were very close to Michael Jackson come to me, tell me their stories on tape and then call me later and say, oh, my gosh, I did -- I made a terrible mistake talking to you. Anthony Pellicano says this, this, this and this and they're threatening me and I'm scared to death. So that's my biggest regret, that I put these people in a terrible spot...One woman was almost mowed off the road walking to a domestics job in Santa Barbara, California. An attorney who brought some security guards from Neverland to me was run off the road on his motorcycle and wound up in the hospital, almost died. So, they play with the big boys. This is "L.A. Confidential" brought to life, and it's been going on a long time there. And Anthony Pellicano had at least one police officer who was helping him gather information. That officer has been suspended."

clickNovember 12, 2003: Former nanny of the heiress of Canada's largest newspaper testified before federal grand jury investigating Pellicano's use of illegal wiretapping.

clickNovember 12, 2003: In a telephone interview, Mr. Fields said there was "no question" that the F.B.I. was seeking information about Mr. Pellicano. "That's what they were questioning me about," said Mr. Fields, who has hired a criminal defense lawyer, John W. Keker. Mr. Fields denied any knowledge of wiretapping. "I do not do that, nor did I authorize Anthony Pellicano to do any wiretapping, ever," he said.

clickclickclickNovember 12, 2003: Fields and Masry Investigated for Hiring Pellicano In Wiretap Probe.

clickNovember 12, 2003: Comedian Gary Shandling told the Times that an FBI agent had contacted him and asked him questions about wiretapping in relation to Pellicano. Hollywood publicist Michael Sands said he suspected Pellicano of tapping his phones in 1990 when he was investigating one of Sands' celebrity clients. Sands acknowledged he could never prove it. "Anthony Pellicano was one of the detectives all the lawyers in Hollywood liked and they gave him their business,” Sands said. “They wanted his old-style muscle. There wasn't much of that around anymore.” 

clickNovember 12, 2003: Sally Perdue, who told the London Telegraph in 1994 that after she was threatened with physical violence, her car windshield was broken and spent shotgun shell was left on the seat. Perdue abruptly relocated to China a few months after talking to the Telegraph, shortly after Paula Jones sued Mr. Clinton for sexual harassment."Anthony Pellicano, the L.A.-based private investigator and O.J. defense team veteran Sexgate provocatuer Lucianne Goldberg told Peyser that Pellicano's services were bought and paid for by the Clinton White House. When Peyser confronted the Los Angeles private detective with Goldberg's claim, he didn't deny it. "You're a smart girl. No comment," Pellicano told the Post reporter.

clickNovember 12, 2003: Pellicano Tapes Could Implicate the Clintons.

clickNovember 12, 2003: Pellicano is writng a book for New Millenium Press and accepted a payment of $500,00 for it.

clickNovember 12, 2003: Old newspaper and magazine interviews demonstrated a close relationship between Bert Fields and Pellicano. "Bert gives me an absolute free hand when I'm involved," Mr Pellicano boasted in an interview with Vanity Fair in 1993. A managing partner at Mr Fields' firm, Norman Levine,responded in The New York Times that: "Anthony Pellicano never had a free hand to do anything illegal." 

clickNovember 11, 2003: According to court documents, Alexander Proctor implicated himself in the threat against Ms. Busch during a tape-recorded conversation with an F.B.I. informant. Mr. Proctor told the informant that he had been offered $10,000 by Mr. Pellicano to set Ms. Busch's car on fire but, uncomfortable with that, he bought the fish and a rose to warn her off the story. The FBI subsequently searched Mr. Pellicano's office for evidence linking him to Mr. Proctor. Federal agents said that during the search, two unregistered hand grenades and some plastic explosives were found. The search also turned up the computer files that have become the focus of the federal investigation on wiretapping and extortion. It is not only entertainment lawyers who have been questioned in the investigation, but also divorce lawyers and criminal lawyers in both Los Angeles and New York who employed Mr. Pellicano, according to two lawyers with knowledge of the inquiry.

clickNovember 10, 2003: Bert Fields, who worked with Pellicano in defense of clients including Michael Jackson and Don Simpson, stressed he had no knowledge of illegal wiretaps involving Pellicano when he was called before the grand jury investigation.

clickNovember 8, 2003: "FBI agents believe they have evidence Anthony Pellicano illegally wiretapped people," said one person close to the Pellicano investigation. ...."And they are certainly implying to people that they only found out about who to talk to because of wiretaps."

clickOctober 15, 2003: Pellicano's explanation of how he became in possession of illegal weapons, "I had to protect a client. Years ago I put his stuff away in a safe because he didn't know how to get rid of it. The guy's dead and I'd forgotten it. On a totally unrelated matter the FBI found it and arrested me on weapons charges."

clickOctober 10, 2003: Pellicano could have received 21 years in prison if convicted on all three counts of illegal weapons possession, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. Instead he plead guilty to to two felony counts of possessing hand grenades and C-4 explosives and got a sweet deal of not more than 33 months in prison.

clickOctober 2003: The U.S. Attorney, Dan Saunders said that Pellicano's plea agreement on the illegal weapons charges "had no bearing on other investigations that may be ongoing." His office is investigating allegations that Pellicano conducted illegal wiretapping on behalf of a number of lawyers.

clickSeptember 27, 2003: Pellicano was the PI accused of tampering with evidence in the doctor's death (fall of 95) at Don Simpson's house. Then later in Jan of 96, Don Simpson is dead at the same address and this writer says that Pellicano was called in at that time too.

clickJuly 21, 2003: The FBI is investigating a tip that Pellicano was paid $100,000 to help a criminal defendant flee the country. It is believed the fugitive was Andrew Luster, 39, the Max Factor heir who was recaptured in Mexico after being convicted in absentia for drugging and raping women.

clickJune 4, 2003: Sgt. Mark Arneson of LAPD was suspended for allegedly accessing confidential federal databases for Anthony Pellicano. Arneson was recieving regular payments from Pellicano in addition to his salary from the police department.

clickJune 4, 2003: Second LAPD officer accused of divulging data to Anthony Pellicano.

clickApril 16, 2003: Anthony Pellicano dug up dirt on Elizabeth Hurley and lawyer Perry Wander plus a string of models though Steven Bing and Marty Singer are cleared in a libel suit from having orchestrated or known of the slander campaign.

clickApril 14, 2003: Judge refuses to suppress computer evidence seized by FBI in raid of Pellicano's office.

clickApril 2003: In November 2002, Pellicano was arrested by F.B.I. agents, who found explosives in his safe "strong enough to bring down an airplane" after an informant fingered him as the person who had hired a tough guy to put a bullet through the windshield of the parked car of a Los Angeles Times reporter working on a story about the actor Steven Seagal and the Mob. A dead fish was left on the car, as well as a rose and a cardboard sign saying STOP. Vanity Fair contributing editor Ned Zeman, who published a Seagal story in lthe October 2002 issue of Vanity Fair, says a man confronted him with a gun, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. The gun was empty. Zeman has no idea who the man was. (Pellicano has said he has no involvement with Seagal.) Former reporter Rod Lurie told me that Pellicano had phoned him 35 times over a six-month period to try to get him to kill a piece he was writing about the source-gathering techniques of the National Enquirer. Lurie was mysteriously hit by a car while riding his bike. Very few knew of the accident, but Pellicano was the first to call to smugly console him. Diane Dimond, who pursued the Michael Jackson story for the TV show Hard Copy starting in 1993 said, "My home was vandalized, my car was broken into, and our defense documents were stolen. Paramount [which owned Hard Copy] gave me bodyguards."

clickApril 2003: Jackson had Anthony Pellicano working for him during the 1993 sex scandal. Big-name Hollywood lawyers who don't want to get their hands dirty often hire Pellicano, who was intimately involved in trying to negotiate with Jordie Chandler's father—whom he accused of extortion—and in discrediting the accusers. "Bert [Fields] gives me an absolute free hand when I'm involved," Pellicano told me in 1993. "This is why I have the reputation I have, because I solve problems." Jordie Chandler ultimately did not testify because the prosecution could not promise him that his family would be safe. Jordie was nearly run over twice one day by an unidentified car. Chandler's father, Evan, was threatened; he received a dead rat in a box; and his office was ransacked. The boy's attorney, Larry Feldman, was protected for several months by guards from the U.S. Justice Department after he received numerous death threats and had the walls of his office building sprayed with pornographic graffiti. Meanwhile, security people at Neverland brandished guns, and employees there believed that the phones were tapped. "That certainly chilled potential witnesses," one member of the prosecution team told me recently. "It was very scary stuff." When  the police investigated these allegations they found them to be true. When police wired Jackson's maid Blanca Francia, whose son was one of the boys involved in the investigation, according to someone on the prosecution team, they heard Pellicano beg her not to go to the police with her information. Other former employees reported threats and harassment from Pellicano, and some still cower when they speak of him.

clickMarch 25, 2003: Anthony Pellicano, accused of scheming with Steven Seagal to intimidate journalist, Anita Busch, says he could be of real help to the U.S. government if he wasn't busy fighting it in court.

clickMarch 18, 2003: Summary about Alexander Proctor's involvement with Pellicano by Luke Ford.

clickMarch 13, 2003: Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders said the FBI identified the computer software Pellicano allegedly used to tap into telephones, his contact at the telephone company and a corrupt law enforcement officer who assisted him. Saunders made the new disclosures during an unsuccessful prosecution attempt to revoke Pellicano's $400,000 bail on an unrelated charge of possessing explosives.

clickMarch 4, 2003: Michael Jackson didn't just buy the Chandler family off in 1993 because they insisted that they would still have gone to trial for a certain period of time, but he also had  Anthony Pellicano, who was working for his lawyer, Bert Fields, and intimidating and harassing all kinds of witnesses. One prosecutor told Maureen Orth,  another boy's silence was absolutely bought, but, also, Pellicano was this tough going around trying to scare people away from testifying. A maid that worked in Jackson's California ranch  found her son in a sleeping bag allegedly with Michael Jackson, and she was paid over $1,000,000 to shut up.

clickMarch 1, 2003: Pellicano liked to flash around a Louisville Slugger and has claimed that he's used it on people. In 1992, he told journalist Peter Wilkinson that with martial arts he could "really maim" someone. "I don't want to," he said. "I have and I don't want to." Pellicano has worked as a technical expert for attorneys all over the country and, he lets it be known, also for various government agencies, including the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. While the LAPD says there's no record of him actually doing so, retired robbery-homicide detective Tom Lange, who came to fame during the O. J. Simpson trial, says Pellicano did actas an unofficial, unpaid consultant to the department.  So just how damgerous is Pellicano? The most benign hypothetical, offered by a  prominent producer, is that Pellicano might have been the weapons found is in his office as toys for pampered Hollywood twits who want to play war games in the desert. No doubt that would strikethe court as an excellent excuse.

clickMarch 2003: An article in GQ (p.184) James P. Walsh, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the DeLorean drug trafficking case in 1984, notes that when Pellicano (in his role as the defense team's tape expert) examined the videotapes at the FBI's lab in Washington, a confrontation just happened to break out between Pellicano and an agent in the room. "In the course of that, Mr. Pellicano damaged, in a small way, one of the tapes. In other words, there was a small puncture that was put in one of the original tapes...". The tape was rendered almost unusable.

clickFebruary 13, 2003: "I can't stand that piece of [bleep]," Pellicano says of Seagal in the March issue of GQ. "He's a rat and a [bleep-bleeper]."

clickFebruary 11, 2003: Steven Segal, Anthony Pellicano and the Mafia

clickDecember 30, 2002: U.S. Attorney's Office in L.A. confirms that Anthony Pellicano's current girlfriend, Sandra Will Carradine, signed over the deed to her Carpinteria, California home to post the $400,000 bail to spring him. Pellicano and his wife Kat are divorcing.

clickDecember 26, 2002:  Fascinating web discussion on The High Road about Anthony Pellicano.

clickDecember 18, 2002:  Pellicano could have gotten up to eleven years in prison for federal weapon indictments.

clickDecember 17, 2002:  Department of Justice Press Release on Pellicano's indictment.

clickDecember 2002: The intricate connections between Steven Segal, Anthony Pellicano, the Mafia and the FBI may have prevented Feds from bringing formal charges in the Anita Busch incident.

clickNovember 30, 2002:  There are many accounts alleging previous violent intimidation by Pellicano. Journalist Rod Lurie told of a harassment campaign by Pellicano when he was writing an investigative piece about the National Enquirer for Los Angeles magazine, with constant calls to desist. Then while recovering from serious injury after a hit and run accident with an unmarked car while bike-riding that occurred just ahead of publication, Lurie states that Pellicano called him and asked how he was.Security specialist Gavin de Becker also says he was ominously warned by Pellicano to stay away from his clients. Another L.A.-based writer, Vanity Fair's Ned Zeman, who was working on a similar story to that of Anita Busch, received a sinister threat ahead of publication, a car pulled up next to Zeman, the driver pointed an unloaded gun at him, pulled the trigger and sped off. 

clickNovember 30, 2002:  Pellicano released from federal jail on $400,000 bail.

clickNovember 23, 2002:  Proctor, a 59-year-old ex-con who has been charged with threatening Times writer Anita Busch,  told a FBI informant (in tape-recorded conversations) that Seagal hired him through Anthony Pellicano.. According to the informant's account, Proctor claimed that Pellicano farmed the strong-arm work out to him for $10,000. Prosecutors allege that Proctor, who is being held without bail, left a dead fish, a rose, and a note saying "Stop" on the windshield of Busch's car. 

clickNovember 23, 2002:  Information about Pellicano hiring Proctor to intimidate Anita Busch and the ammunitions and money found by the FBI when they searched Pellicano's offices.

clickNovember 23, 2002:  FBI investigating Pellicano direct involvement in assisting an Israeli trained assassin escape murder charges by sneaking him back to Israel, Pellicano was allegedly paid $100,000 for his services in this case.

clickNovember 22, 2002:  The weapons that FBI agents discovered in Pellicano's offices included "fresh military-grade C-4 plastic explosives, anti-personnel grenades, and stacks of cash in an office safe" (along with the C-4, investigators found a detonation cord and blasting cap). "The amount of C-4 found, agents noted, could easily blow up a car and "was, in fact, strong enough to bring down an airplane." 

clickNovember 22, 2002: The Enquirer's "chief goon" Anthony Pellicano sent journalist Stuart Goldman a personal check as "hush" money to keep him from incriminating the Enquirer. Another reporter, Rod Lurie, whom Pellicano had a nonstop campaign against, was knocked off his bike by an unmarked car and suffered two broken ribs and a busted back. Lurie later commented that "it was no accident....I had been warned".

clickNovember 12, 2002: Gennifer Flowers asserted over a decade ago that  Anthony Pellicano was a shill for the Clintons in their "smear campaign" against her. Pellicano claimed that intimate phone calls from Bill Clinton that Flowers had secretly taped had been selectively edited.

clickNovember 2002: Affidavit from FBI Special Agent Stanley E. Ornellas after the search of Pellicano's offices supporting his indictment in violation of Title 26, United States Code, Section 5861(d) for illegal possession of destructive devices.

clickOctober 17, 2002: This is fascinating, after scouring all the FBI press releases for their Los Angles office from 2001-2004, the arrest of Alexander Proctor was the only piece posted relating to the Pellicano investigation, but it confirms that that the investigation is being handled by the FBI's Organized Crime Squad and the Los Angeles Police Department's Organized Crime Vice Division.

clickFebruary 26, 2002: In the summer of 1992, Paul Barresi gave up acting in porn films to work as a legman for Anthony Pellicano. 

clickFebruary 5, 2002:  Pellicano examined the 18.5 minutes of erased tape from the Nixon White House and declared the erasure "accidental". Claiming his expertise, Pellicano went on further to say, "If I drag a file to the trash and empty the trash, that just means that there was a pointer and now it says don't point to that anymore," Pellicano said. "But if something is erased and something is written on top of it, then you can forget about it -- you'll never get it back." 

clickFebruary 2, 2002:  Pellicano hasn't played by the rules for a long time, suggesting he has friends in high places who have helped keep him out of trouble.

click2002: Testimony of Alexander Proctor: "....because Pellicano...that guy made me...I think Pellicano's f-cking with me and I think he wasn't staright with me and I think he uh, he's uh, trying to get out...I think Anthony is losing it. I think he's getting to an age, quite frankly, that I think he just, there's deterioration. I see it."

clickJune 26, 2001: Dominic Dunne said in an interview with Larry King, "I went nuts after he (his daughter's murderer) got out of jail, and I hired Anthony Pellicano...to follow him and to report on him, and all that stuff, you know. Stalk him. Yeah, I did. And I mean, I was -- I was like crazy for a while after that happened. And before I decided the best thing to do was to write about it instead of...The last I heard, he changed his name. He took his mother's name -- his mother's first name for his last name, so he became John Mora, and, he was in Seattle the last I heard from him. At a restaurant called -- the Pelican Grill or something." 

clickJune 24, 2001: In a postscript in his book, which is a compilation of two decades of Dunne's articles for Vanity Fair magazine, the author describes how - 14 years after his daughter's killing - he wrote about detective Anthony Pellicano's role in the O.J. Simpson trial, and how he had once hired Pellicano to track his daughter's killers movements.

clickMay 25, 2001: CBS 2 hired Anthony Pellicano to examine the tape recordings that Bakely had illicitly made of Robert Blake to see whether he could identify any alterations. "I don't think his voice has been slowed down," Pellicano said. "With your permission, I called the National Enquirer and asked them to submit the original tape recordings for authenticity, and they're considering that." 

clickMay 17, 2001: Private investigator Anthony Pellicano is working for the "Baretta" star, who has been in the spotlight since his wife was murdered earlier this month.

clickApril 26, 2001:  In 1994, Paul Barressi got involved in the Michael Jackson child-molestation scandal when he was approached by two of Jackson's servants who claimed they'd seen the performer rubbing a young boy's thighs in an "inappropriate way." The couple wanted Barresi's help in selling their story to the tabloids, and Barresi says he obtained a $150,000 offer from the Enquirer. He was to receive a 10 percent commission. But the servants, Barresi says, screwed him by hiring a Beverly Hills lawyer who promised he could get them much more tabloid cash, as well as book and movie deals. Angry at being cut out of the action, Barresi taped them several times as they related their tale of supposed celebrity perversion. Two of the tapes were made surreptitiously, with Barresi slipping a recorder into his pocket before joining the Jackson hirelings at their lawyer's office.  Barresi contacted Anthony Pellicano, who was working for Jackson to try to quash the scandal. Barresi told Pellicano about the tapes, saying they contained inconsistencies that would help undercut the servants' allegations. "It was great because after that I took all the information to Pellicano and just discredited the shit outta them. They didn't make a dime."

clickMarch 3, 2001:  Pellicano's hired to analyse FBI audio tapes of former Ku Klux Klansmen in the 1963 church bombing that killed four Black girls.

clickFebruary 16, 2000:  Tom Cruise hired a lawyer, Dennis Wasser, and the private investigator Anthony Pellicano in his divorce battle with Nicole Kidman. Pellicano's reknown as a digger made a source close to the couple say, "Cruise looks like he's trying to crush her".

clickDecember 7, 2000:  Pellicano's hiring by prosecutors in Aisenberg case causes legal disturbance.

clickJuly 20, 2000:  Mike Myers hired high-profile private eye Anthony Pellicano in his battle with Universal and Imagine Entertainment over the aborted film about his Saturday Night Live character, Dieter, Daily Variety reported. The trade paper observed that Pellicano has developed a reputation for "helping out his celebrity clients by digging up dirt on their adversaries." 

clickJuly 17, 2000: Anthony Pellicano was the hired tape expert who previously testified that Nixon secretary Rose Mary Woods had erased the 18.5 minutes of Watergate tape accidentally, thinks the tape is worth re-examining with the news that the National Archives is looking into whether it is technically possible to recover the erased conversation. 

clickMay 23, 2000:  Pellicano was sued in the Don Simpson deaths (death of doctor at Simpson's house) for being called BEFORE the cops were and was charged with tampering with evidence prior to the arrival of the cops. (fall of 95) and Simpson died in a similiar manner at his home in Jan. of 96. Pellicano's friend, Brad Roberts, was the detective involved in both Simpson deaths.

clickJanuary 17, 2000: Pellicano quoted In Los Angeles Business Journal on celebrity safety and the Internet, "You can go into a cyber-cafe and send an e-mail and disappear without a trace."

click2000:  Allegations were made that Anthony Pellicano, a veteran military-intelligence officer and so-called “Gumshoe to the Stars,” had staked out Nicole Simpson’s house. "Pellicano has more mob connections than J. Edgar Hoover". He was hired by Howard Weitzman in the John DeLorean case, his first assignment upon moving to Los Angeles in 1983 . In 1976 he resigned under fire from the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission after local newspapers publicized the $30,000 loan he’d received from Paul “the Waiter” Ricca, the son of mob boss Paul de Lucia – the Godfather of Pellicano’s daughters ...Donald Re, Pellicano's attorney (a former law partner of Howard Weitzman) also represented A.C.Cowlings, a friend of O.J. Simpson and an employee of well known Mafia mogul, Joey Ippolito.

clickNovember 29, 1999: This author wonders, "You look at the background of people when you weigh their testimony (or what they say outside of court). If Anthony Pellicano lied for Nixon in the 18&1/2 minute tape gap, and lied for the the bearers of the "Oswald alone did it theory" for the House Special Committee on Assassinations, then you have to wonder how someone with such a history of high-profile history of lying would end up being Mark Fuhrman's PI during the "Trial of the Century."

clickclickApril 27, 1999:  Pellicano Employed for Protection in Disney Squabble between Katzenberg and Eisner.

clickFebruary 2, 1999:  In an interview with Lucianne Goldberg, Peyser of the NY Post learned that, "Anthony Pellicano, the L.A.-based private investigator and O.J. defense team veteran [was] responsible for digging up Andy Bleiler" (Monica Lewinsky's old boyfriend who claimed that she had gone to Washington just "to get her presidential kneepads").Pellicano's services, Goldberg claimed, were bought and paid for by the White House.Peyser didn't just rely on Goldberg's word. She checked with Pellicano himself. His response: "No comment. You're a smart girl. No comment." No wonder. Pellicano has a lot not to comment about.

clickDecember 31, 1998:  "I met a man that I believe was him (Pellicano) at the Holiday Inn in Falls Church, Virginia in 1988. It was during a discussion pertaining to guns for cocaine coming from Panama City, Panama," said Bill Wasz , now serving time in a high security prison for other crimes.

clickMay 12, 1998:  Jerry Springer hired Pellicano to find out who videotaped him in a hotel room with a porn star and her stepmother.

clickclickApril 24-30, 1998:  On July 11, 1989, a sexual-harassment lawsuit was filed against Don Simpson by a Paramount secretary named Monica Harmon. Harmon had worked under Simpson and Bruckheimer for 21 months in 1986 and 1987.Simpson-Bruckheimer and Paramount brought heavy muscle down on Monica Harmon. Rather than, for fear of public humiliation, simply buy Harmon’s silence, they began an investigation to undermine her character, if not her accusations. Simpson hired  Bertram Fields, of Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman & Machtinger, to prepare a counter-suit against Harmon, eventually filing a $5 million libel suit against her. Simpson then hired Anthony Pellicano.  Pellicano flew to Minnesota and located a former Paramount employee named Patrick Winberg. Winberg would later tell Fields, in depositions, that Harmon was a regular cocaine user and had stolen merchandise from the Simpson-Bruckheimer store.  Pellicano had given Winberg $4,000 in bribe money and overpaid substantially for hotel meals and expenses Winberg incurred for the three days he supplied information to Pellicano and Fields in Los Angeles.  Ultimately Harmon's entire suit  was dismissed in court. Harmon's co-workers have never disputed the truth of her accusations against Simpson. Harmon was offered settlements of various sizes, but, wanting justice, refused them. To this day, she has never spoken publicly about her humiliating ordeal. Simpson and Bruckheimer were vindicated.

clickMarch 10, 1998:  Pellicano worked for two of O.J. Simpson's lawyers, Weitzman and Cochran, and only claimed to start working for Fuhrman after the tapes surfaced. Fuhrman claims that Pellicano initially contacted him. Early on in the Simpson case it was implied that Pellicano was working directly for Simpson at the time of the murders. There was a claim that one of Simpson's private investigators was an eyewitness to the murders and Pellicano issued a statement denying he was the investigator in question. It was Pellicano who called the woman whose roommate had dated a friend of Fuhrman's and who said that he was a rude racist guy. When she was asked if she'd talked with anyone in the government, she said that Pellicano identified himself as from the government. It was Cochran who was questioning her, and both he and Judge Ito agreed, "Let's not go there" regarding Pellicano. 

click1998:  Filmography: Technical Advisor on movie "Enemy of the State" starring Will Smith
Synopsis: A lawyer becomes a target by a corrupt politician and his NSA goons when he accidentally receives key evidence to a serious politically motivated crime

clickSeptember 9, 1997:  Anthony Pellicano says he has reams of smut on some tabloid editors."If you found out the owner of X tabloid was a child molesting, sodomizing, woman-beating, dominatrix-loving fool, who cares? It won't stop people at supermarket checkout counters from picking up tabloids."

clickSeptember 1, 1997:  Bert Fields was criticized for his coordination of the criminal and civil aspects of the Michael Jackson case in 1993, as well as for hiring private investigator Anthony Pellicano, and he ultimately withdrew.

clickJuly 28, 1997:  Pellicano quoted on Versace murder, "If someone has the wherewithal, the time, the motivation and the skills to kill you, you are probably dead."

clickJuly 7, 1997:  Pellicano disputes conspiracy theory in JFK assassination after self appointing himself as an expert to analyze the Dallas Police tapes, spending $300,000 to do so.

clickJuly 4, 1997:  Bruckheimer and Pellicano dismissed from conspiracy in wrongful drug death suit at late producer Don Simpson's estate.

clickFebruary 4, 1997:  "Everytime I say I've seen everything, something comes up that surprises me," Pellicano said. "One case goes away and then another appears. It's like electrolysis: One hair gets yanked and another one appears. People come out of the woodwork to try to get that money."

clickclick1997: Anthony Pellicano and Dominic Dunne both appear in "An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn" considered offically the worst Hollywood movie of 1997.

click1997:  Pellicano performed a task for the Scientoligists. He delivered information to the CBS show "Sixty Minutes" for an expose on Werner Erhard, the founder of EST, with whom Scientology has had a long-standing feud. 

clickAugust 15, 1996: "I never moved the body and I never conspired with anyone to cover up anything," Pellicano is quoted in response to the coroner's investigator, Richard Lutz's statement regarding the suspicious death of Don Simpson and his friend. Mr. Lutz said, "It appears that someone obstructed justice by destroying evidence and lying to police and the coroner's office about what happened," and later added "Simpson's representatives tried to deceive authorities into believing that Ammerman died of a health problem--the same thing that they told police and the coroner about Simpson when he died. I think they tried to cover up the drug situation and what was really going on in Simpson's home."

clickAugust 15, 1996: Pellicano implicated in conspiracy to cover up fatal drug overdose at Don Simpson's house.

clickJune 11, 1996: After it was announced that a doctor living in Don Simpson's home had been found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Simpson's private investigator, Anthony Pellicano, announced, "I've had a lot of clients who've had people die in their homes. What's the big deal?"

clickApril 6, 1996:  Areas around the bathroom where movie producer Don Simpson died and the guest house where a friend died appeared to have been "sanitized" before investigators arrived, authorities said. Simpson's private investigator, Anthony Pellicano denied any wrongdoing,  "I didn't sanitize anything.." though not accused by anyone at the time.

clickSeptember 1995:  Jordie Chandler, the boy in the 1993 sex scandal,definitely would have testified had Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti moved more quickly to indict Jackson. The boy himself,  was considering going into the witness-protection program—such was his fear of the retribution he would suffer by publicly alleging that Michael Jackson was a pedophile. He had reason to be afraid. His family claims that a few weeks before the case was settled the boy and the housekeeper were nearly run down near their home by a speeding car. The car also came at them in reverse. The boy's attorney, Larry Feldman, was protected for several months by guards from the U.S. Justice Department after having received numerous death threats and had pornographic graffiti sprayed on the walls of his law-office building. The boy's father received a dead rat in a box at his home. The witness-protection-program idea fell through, however, when neither state nor federal authorities offered it and the boy realized that he might end up living his life like a prisoner.

clickAugust 29, 1995:  Calls to Bruckheimer's office were referred to Anthony Pellicano who was doing "damage control" for his client about the death at the estate of his partner, Don Simpson.

clickAugust 28, 1995:  Pellicano's role in the tale of tapes in O.J. Simpson trial.

clickAugust 18, 1995:  Pellicano denied that the recently retired Mark Fuhrman is a racist and the detective didn't commit perjury when he testified he hadn't use the word "nigger." "Did you ever hear the term mental block?" Pellicano asked. "I mean, when someone asks you a question like that, sometimes you don't — you block out everything except what you think you hear. That's what happened." Pellicano insisted that Fuhrman was intent on "making himself look macho" to a North Carolina professor interviewing him for a screenplay.

clickJuly 17, 1995: Pellicano, working on Detective Mark Fuhrman's behalf, gathered evidence that Kathleen Bell was lying, and she subsequently wrote a letter to Judge Lance Ito stating that she believed O.J.was guilty and did not want to take the stand. Bell, had figured prominently in the O.J. defense's plans with her recollection of Fuhrman's rant about "niggers gathered together and killed".

clickMarch 13, 1995: Kathleen Bell, had figured prominently in the O.J. defense's plans with her recollection of Fuhrman's rant about "niggers gathered together and killed". Pellicano, working for Fuhrman, began harassing Bell and started fictitious rumors about her in the media which changed her life.

clickJanuary 20, 1995: Pellicano investigated reports that Fuhrman often had coffee with murder victim Nicole Simpson and sometimes stopped by her house and found them to be false.

clickJanuary 1995: John Dunton refused to testify before the Al Cowlings grand jury, saying he would be killed if he revealed what he knew about the murders. Dunton said he would go to prison rather than tell. The convicted forger was promptly jailed for contempt. A few days later, celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano said Dunton told prosecutors that Pellicano saw the murders. Pellicano said he wished it were true. Dunton was released and returned to obscurity.

clickOctober, 1994: Bert Fields has been representing Jackson since 1990 and had negotiated for him, with Sony, the biggest music deal ever with possible earnings of $700 million. Fields brought in investigator Anthony Pellicano to help sort things out in the 1993 child molestation case. Pellicano did things Sicilian-style. Fields later brought in criminal attorney, Howard Weitzman.

clickSeptember 19, 1994: Dunton, who had gone on television claiming that two men killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman and that a private eye hired to follow Nicole witnessed the murders, later said he would be killed if he talked. Dunton was jailed after refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating Al "A.C." Cowlings. Anthony Pellicano then emerged to deny that he was the private eye Dunton referred to on TV.  Pellicano says Dunton told police he was the detective outside the condo. That, said Pellicano, is "a fabrication and blatantly untrue. I have never worked for . . . any lawyer on behalf of O.J.Simpson", but later confirmed he was working for Fuhrman.

clickclickSeptember 9, 1994: John Dunton, a man jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury in the O.J. Simpson case told authorities Anthony Pellicano witnessed the slayings of O.J. Simpson's ex-wife and her friend. Dunton told police he saw the sleuth in a car outside Ms. Simpson's Brentwood home on June 12, the night of the murders, Pellicano has now been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury investigating Al Cowlings' role in Simpson's flight from police June 17. Pellicano denies shadowing Nicole Brown Simpson and being outside her condo the night she and Ron Goldman were slashed to death.

clickclickMarch 22, 1994: Private investigator Anthony Pellicano, employed by Michael Jackson, testified for three hours before a Santa Barbara County grand jury investigating molestation charges against the star in 1994. 

clickMarch 22, 1994: PBS broadcast on 1993 Michael Jackson allegations with interesting facts about Paul Baressi.

clickMarch 22, 1994:  Pellicano's job for Michael Jackson was to shut the 1993 sexual abuse scandal down. 

clickSpring 1994:  Jerry Scalise, a member of the Joe Ferriola street crew headquartered in Cicero, Illinois, who was alleged to have been involved in the Mafia slaying of wise guy William Dauber and his wife,  was rumored to have written his memoirs with Anthony Pellicano, who is from his hometown.

clickFebruary 1994:  An early article on Anthony Pellicano by John Connolly. Particularly memorable is when Pellicano, after unsuccessfully threatening Connolly screamed  that Connolly was a "cockroach" and went on to say Connolly should be glad he was in New York and not on Pellicano's turf in L.A. Connolly asked Pellicano if he was always a tough guy. "I'm not only a tough guy," he said, "I'm connected to the right people, you asshole." THis piece is far too comprehensive in scope to briefly summarize in a few lines here and do it justice. This is an absolute must read.

clickJanuary 25, 1994:  The father of the 14-year-old who has accused Michael Jackson of molesting him was cleared of attempted extortion of the pop superstar by the Los Angeles DA after Anthony Pellicano said the teen's father was asking the pop star for $20 million in exchange for his son's silence.

clickDecember 17, 1993: The L.A. trio in charge of damage control for Jackson--lawyers Weitzman and Bert Fields, and private investigator Anthony Pellicano--suddenly splintered on November 22, 1993.

clickDecember 8, 1993: There were two kidnapping attempts and threats of assassination on Latoya Jackson after her statement, "Forget about the superstar, forget about the icon. If he was any other man ... who was sleeping with little boys, you wouldn't like this guy. ... I just think Michael needs help."  Fields and Anthony Pellicano admitted at the time that the star slept in the same bed as young boys. Pellicano stated "Michael is always fully dressed ... Michael goes to bed with his hat on. ... You could say it's strange, it's weird, it's inappropriate. ... But it is not criminal (or) immoral.''  

clickclickDecember 3, 1993: Michael Jackson's chauffeur, Gary Hearne, gave a sworn statement that he was ordered by Jackson and Pellicano to go to Jackson's Century City condominium and to remove a briefcase, suitcase and a number of other items from the apartment just around the time police searched it in the 1993 sex-abuse investigation. Hearne said he delivered them to Pellicano's home. Pellicano confirmed that Hearne was instructed to bring him the cases but said they contained only "personal items".

clickOctober 22, 1993: Entertainment Weekly ranked Pellicano one of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry for 1993.

clickOctober 11, 1993: Jackson forces went beyond a self defense principle to launch a massive, well-financed campaign against the 13-year-old alleged victim, claiming he was part of an extortion plot. This kid had been befriended by Jackson. The honorable thing would have been to express concern for a child who had, at the very least, become terribly disoriented. Rather Jackson used Anthony Pellicano Jr., as a bully and private eye, to be his spokesman on the matter. Pellicano clearly believes that the best defense is a good offense, even when the enemy is 13. "You always want to be on the right side of Anthony Pellicano" says producer Don Simpson, who employed the man. And Pellicano warns, "Anybody who wants to malign one of my clients, I dig into their pasts, so they gotta take the same heat that they dish out".

clickOctober 6, 1993: Investigations looked into whether off-duty LAPD personnel acted as drivers or provided security for accused madam Heidi Fleiss. Investigations into police misconduct in the Heidi Fleiss case and the Michael Jackson involved both Anthony Pellicano and Howard Weitzman.

clickOctober 1993: Pellicano worked for a subcommittee of the FBI on a project about the preservation and restoration of audio recordings.

clickSeptember 20, 1993:  Producer Don Simpson  used Pellicano in 1989 to fend off a $5 million suit for emotional distress filed by a secretary, Harmon, who claimed that, while around her, Simpson watched porn videos, had her schedule hookers for him and used cocaine. Pellicano claimed he turned up evidence that the woman did drugs, rented porn videos herself and stole letters from Simpson's wastebasket. "Anthony is one of those people, shall we say, who is a lion at the gate," says Simpson. "He is not a man to be on the wrong side of."....Pellicano had worked for Michael Jackson for four years when the 1993 sex scandal broke.

clickSeptember 20, 1993:  Good historical summary  of Pellicano's life. In 1974 he began a P.I. firm in Chicago under alias 'Tony Fortune' that specialized in missing persons and collections. He also filed for bankruptcy and listed Paul DeLucia Jr., the son of a reputed Chicago Mafia kingpin and the godfather of Pellicano's daughters, as one of his creditors. In 1977, he catapulted into fame by  discovering the exhumed remains of Liz Taylor's third husband Mike Todd in Illinois cemetery. Of course he brought a camera crew along to the event. In 1983, he was lured by Howard Weitzman from Chicago to California to testify for the defense in the DeLorean cocaine case.  Producer Don Simpson (partner of Jerry Bruckheimer) used Pellicano in 1989 to fend off a $5 million suit for emotional distress filed by a secretary. In 1993, Roseanne Arnold, after having hired Pellicano to find her adopted daughter believed he'd been in league with the Enquirer all along and described him as `the sleaziest human being ever'.

clickSeptember 10, 1993:  Michael Jackson and Pellicano summary to date.

clickSeptember 9, 1993:  Pellicano's allegations that the father of the 13 year old accusing Jackson of sexual molestation had tried to extort money from the singer, came one day after leaks that he had obtained a secretly recorded phone conversation in which an individual identified as the boy's father threatened Jackson.

clickSeptember 3, 1993: Original discussion on Google with news excerpts from 1993 about Pellicano's extortion allegations against Michael Jackson's first accuser's family.

clickSeptember 3, 1993: The strategy used by Anthony Pellicano to defend Michael Jackson against allegations of child molestation is applauded by the Los Angeles Times in what reads as almost an advertisement for his services.

clickSeptember 3, 1993: Pellicano and Weitzman claim that the unauthorized wiretapping they used to defend Michael Jackson was legal.

clickSeptember 1, 1993: Private investigator, Ernie Rizzo accused Anthony Pellicano of doctoring audio tapes in the MIchael Jackson case to falsely implicate the 13 year old boy's father in an extortion attempt. Rizzo also accused Pellicano, who works for Jackson, of trying to bribe the boy's family members into keeping the sexual molestation allegations under wraps.

clickclickAugust 29, 1993: Anthony Pellicano announced that the sexual molestation allegations from the 13-year-old arose against Michael Jackson only after the boy's father had tried and failed to extort $20 million from the singer. Pellicano told the LA Times he was at a meeting where this occurred. 

clickAugust 24, 1993: Anthony Pellicano immediately said the 1993 sexual molestation allegation against Michael Jackson was prompted after the Chandler family's unsuccessful effort to extort money from the musician. "These people tried to extort Michael for a lot of money," Anthony Pellicano told KNBC-TV. "When we would not pay, a phone call was made to Child and Family Services, which started this investigation." He offered no further details.

clickAugust 22, 1993: Anthony Pellicano announced within one week of the DA's investigation of Michael Jackson beginning that "extortionists" filed an abuse complaint against the star.

clickAugust 16, 1993: During the Heidi Fleiss scandal in Hollywood, Pellicano was hired by Nathanson of Columbia Pictures to sort out the facts. Pellicano boasted that, "People are scared to death of being exposed. I'm getting phone calls from a lot of people who want me to represent them."

clickJanuary 1993: Anthony Pellicano's greatest strength lay in getting people not to talk. Larry Feldman charged that Jackson's side had deliberately used Pellicano in the 1993 Jackson sex scandal "to be out front and make slanderous charges about [Jamie] and his parents." He further states in court documents: "Muzzling independent witnesses, while allowing defendant's investigator to say anything he wants in a declaration for the press, is not justice."Cabell Bruce, a producer for Hard Copy, told of going up to the front porch of a woman who worked at Neverland and trying to talk to her. "She literally started shaking, her eyes filled with tears, and all she could say was 'Call Mr. Pellicano.'" Diane Dimond of Hard Copy complained that every time she found a source who had been close to Michael Jackson the response is "Mr. Pellicano has asked us not to say anything." Pellicano went as far as to offer to pay Kevin Smith to tell him who had leaked the Department of Children's Services report to Splash. When Smith refused, Pellicano pointedly said, "You're not even a citizen" and "I don't want anyone to get hurt in all this." There were also reports that Jamie's father had found a bug on his home phone, and was roughed up at his office. Pellicano denied that he had anything to do with this, saying, "If I had wanted him roughed up, he would have been roughed up." Diane Dimond, who along with local KNBC has broken more new developments in this case than anyone else, says she has received messages via other reporters from Pellicano: "Tell Diane Dimond I'm watching her." "Tell her I hope her health is good." 

click1993: Filmography:  Special Thanks on movie "The Firm"
Synopsis: Power can be murder to resist. A young lawyer joins a prestigous law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side.

clickJanuary 30, 1992: Because of the gaps, Anthony Pellicano said, even more doubt remains about the meaning of the conversation. In addition to the apparent editing, Pellicano said he has a "subjective" judgment that some of Gennifer Flowers ' statements on the tapes may have been dubbed in later, making Bill Clinton appear to be responding to remarks that he never actually heard. "The tape is suspect at best," Pellicano said, adding that, without access to the original tapes, he cannot prove his suspicions. When the Star released the copy of the tape, it labeled some gaps, but Pellicano said the ones he found would not have been noticeable to a casual listener.

clickJuly 31, 1990: Even though two years ago William Nickloff Jr., a Sacramento sound engineer and private investigator, scoured the "Stained Class" album for subliminal clues and uncovered a subliminal chant which said the words "do it" implanted on a cut titled "Better By You, Better Than Me", Anthony Pellicano, a Los Angeles private investigator and audio tape analyst testified as an expert witness for Judas Priest and CBS, and insisted that there was no subliminal content or backward sounds anywhere on the recording.

clickJuly 16, 1990: Anthony Pellicano as an audio expert for CBS testifies that there were no subliminal messages in a Judas Priest recording that resulted in the death of two teenage boys.

clickMarch 8, 1990: The Enquirer's chief goon, Anthony Pellicano,  began a nonstop campaign to hound Lurie, de Becker and Stuart Goldman (three journalists who were doing an expose on the National Enquirer).  He threatened, bullied, wheedled, and cajoled them. (At one point, Pellicano sent Suart Goldman a personal check as "hush" money to keep him from incriminating the Enquirer.) When Goldman changed his private telephone number -- which he did frequently -- Pellicano would call just to let him know he'd "made" the new number. Pellicano never really harmed Goldman, just wiretapped his conversations and terrorized his family. However, Pellicano had "a major hard-on" for Lurie and de Becker, who he said he was going to expose as "a couple of fags." Pellicano stated ominously, "Their lives are going to be disrupted in ways they can't even begin to imagine". subsequently, Lurie, while riding his bicycle, was knocked fifty feet in the air by an unmarked car and wound up in the hospital with two broken ribs and a busted back. Lurie was resolute after the accident, "It was no accident.....they made good on their threat".

click1988:  Filmography: Acting credit as "Mr Norris" on movie "Illegally Yours"
Synopsis: After all, what's a little blackmail, burglary, perjury and murder amongst friends?

click1986: Filmography: Guest Appearance on TV series "Crime Story"
Synopsis: The saga of a Chicago police detective's efforts to stop a young hood's ruthless rise in the ranks of organized crime.

clickMay 9, 1984: John DeLorean's lawyers charged that the government may have tried to undercut the auto maker's defense against cocaine-trafficking charges by obtaining the telephone toll records of a private investigator hired by the defense, Anthony Pellicano.

clickOctober 26, 1983: Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator hired by John Z. DeLorean's attorney, Howard Wietzman, said that he welcomes an investigation into how Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt obtained copies of secret FBI videotapes implicating the auto maker in an alleged cocaine smuggling scheme.

clickclick1980: Filmography: Writer for episode of TV series "Magnum P.I."
Synopsis: The adventures of a Hawaii based private investigator.

clickDecember 29, 1978: Dissenting opinion from the Final Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations on JFK in which it was openly questioned whether the December 13, 1978, report of Anthony J. Pellicano had been carefully reviewed prior to the conclusion that only one shooter had been involved.

clickclickDecember 13, 1978: Pellicano's Analysis of Dallas Police Tapes in JFK Assasination that was submitted to. Congress in which is asserted that only one shooter had been involved.

clickApril 29, 1978:  In Pellicano's "bat cave" he stores more than $200,000 worth of electronic equipment including his own computerized voice identification system.  "I"ve become number one in the country," he announces without a blush. "It just means when Pellicano gets a hold of something he goes all the way." He uses x-ray equipment and "highly sophisticated electronic equipment" to find surveillance devices. Pellicano said he is involved only in finding bugs — not planting them. Pellicano is not sure he will ever die. He admits, "...absolute confidence can conquer death. That's what I have. That's why I've been able to accomplish what I've accomplished." **Early PR piece about Pellicano that's an absolute must read.**

clickAugust 31, 1977:  Sgt Richard Archambault, who was heading up the investigation for the Forest Park police department into the disappearance of Mike Todd's remains, said he had probed as much as he could into the case without subpoening private detective Anthony Pellicano to testify before a grand jury. Pellicano tipped off police to the location of the Todd remains two days after the theft on the basis of information supplied by an informant. He refused to reveal the identity of the informant to police. "All I'm asking is that the states attorney call Pellicano before the grand jury and have him reveal his informant," Archambault said. The states attorney refused to subpoena Pellicano and the investigation was closed.

clickclickJune 30, 1977: Police were told where to find the remains of Elizabeth Taylor's late husband, Mike Todd, by Anthony Pellicano. Pellicano said that he received instructions on where to find the body from an informant. Pellicano told police his informant suggested that the thieves may have removed hte body in the belief that Todd was buried with a 10-carat diamond ring on his finger.

clickJune 3, 1973: An electronic eavesdropping device was discovered attached to a telephone in the Chicago office of Secretary of State Michael J. Hewlett, a highranking aide to the secretary says. Anthony J. Pellicano, operator of Business Intelligence Unlimited, who was reported to have discovered the electronic eavesdropping device, refused to discuss it with a newsman who telephoned him.

clickAugust 25, 1972: Anthony J. Pellicano, owner of Fortune Enterprises, a missing persons investigation service in Chicago claims that 75 out of every 100 runaway spouses are wives. In Pellicano's estimation an unsatisfactory sex life is the most common reason a wife runs.

clickNovember 28, 1971: Tony Pellicano, a private detective who specializes in finding missing persons, said, "To many people, the image of the private eye is terrible. They have this stereotype of the gun in a shoulder holster and a bottle on the desk. Maybe there still are guys who operate that way, but I don't know any."  Pellicano works out of an llth floor Chicago office designed in rich reds and blacks with S900 mirrors and a giant carved zodiac glazing the walls behind his huge desk. His car is equipped with a telephone for which the monthly bill is $300. "That's why I laugh when I see some television detective handle a case for $100 and get shot a couple times besides," he said. Pellicano, 31, said, "Private investigating is highly competitive, except for me. I'm the best."  Pellicano was reluctant to divulge his investigative methods. Pellicano, attempting to explain his approach said, "A private eye needs logic, common sense and a fantastic imagination."