Pellicano Trial: Betrayed Lovers, A Bitter Hedge Funder, More Bert Fields and Murder For Hire

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Early this morning in court was really an all-audio festival with the government playing an assortment of recordings of Pellicano's ex-girlfriend-turned-government witness, Sandra Carradine. Ms. Carradine testified that she hired Mr. Pellicano to help her investigate her then ex-husband, actor Keith Carradine. Wearing a very tasteful dark suit and crisp white blouse, Ms. Carradine testified that she didn't originally ask Mr. Pellicano to wiretap her ex-husband, but rather she wanted him to investigate Mr. Carradine's then assets and whether he was really as broke as he'd represented to the court during their divorce proceedings. "I left it in the capable hands of Mr. Pellicano," Ms. Carradine explained about the detective's investigation of her ex-husband. Ms. Carradine also explained that while Mr. Pellicano was busy investigating her ex-husband, she started an on-again, off-again relationship with Mr. Pellicano that lasted until 2006.

The government then got down to business, playing an audio tape allegedly recorded by Mr. Pellicano of conversation he had with Ms. Carradine back in April of 2001. In the audio tape, Mr. Pellicano that he couldn't just wiretap someone and then show up with the information he'd obtained from the wiretaps. He had to find some legitimate explanation for how he got the information, he told Ms. Carradine. When Ms. Carradine questioned why she was getting any information during that call, Mr. Pellicano snapped, "You either trust me or you don't." Apparently, she did.

With Mr. Pellicano staring intently in her direction, Ms. Carradine explained that although she didn't know that Mr. Pellicano was wiretapping, she came "to learn that he was wiretapping." And she understood that he'd wiretapped Mr. Carradine, his then girlfriend Haley Dumond as well as Ms. Dumond's parents. "He played me conversations that were wiretaps," she told the courtroom.

The government then played yet another audio tape of Mr. Pellicano reporting back to Ms. Carradine on Mr. Carradine's travels.

"They were in Tennessee," Mr. Pellicano said on the audio tape. "I know that they were going," he explained to Ms. Carradine. It was "over the phone." But there was more. As Mr. Pellicano tiredly rubbed his face and then looked down at a transcript, the government played yet another tape. "We're gonna learn, aren't we honey," Mr. Pellicano told Ms. Carradine about how he was going to figure out why Mr. Carradine was living in California with his new girlfriend and her parents. "Remember, I did this once and they cut the fucking cables," Mr. Pellicano said with exasperation.

Mr. Lally, the government prosecutor, stood up after the tape had finished and zeroed in on the source of Mr. Pellicano's exasperation. "What did Mr. Pellicano mean by "they cut the fucking cables?" he asked Ms. Carradine.

"I thought it meant they'd cut the wiretap cables," she said crisply, again avoiding eye contract with Mr. Pellicano. "He then asked for an additional $10,000," she told Mr. Lally. But, it turns out that he didn't get it.

"I never did ever what I just did," Mr. Pellicano told Ms. Carradine, allegedly referring to telling her about the wiretapping of Mr. Carradine. "I'm hoping I can trust you."

"Absolutely," Ms. Carradine shot back.

Apparently, she was lying. She told Mr. Lally on direct that she was also lying when she testified before the grand jury about Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping of her ex-husband. She lied to the grand jury that she wasn't aware that Mr. Pellicano had wiretapped Mr. Carradine and that she wasn't aware that Mr. Pellicano even had wiretapping ability. Those two lies ended up getting her charged with two counts of lying to the grand jury--each of which carries a potential maximum sentence of five years in prison.

When Mr. Hummel cross-examined Ms. Carradine, he pointed out that she was testifying under a plea agreement and that the government basically had her life in their hands. She agreed that she'd lied, but insisted that today on the stand, she was telling the truth. And like all good government witnesses who testify to wiretapping someone (with Mr. Pellicano's assistance), Ms. Carradine began to cry. She even reached for the box of tissues, silently wiping her eyes.

Ms. Carradine managed to avoid eye contact with Mr. Pellicano until he stood to cross examine her. As he approached the podium, she seem to brace herself for the cross examination. "Didn't Mr. Pellicano tell you to consistently tell the truth?" He asked for some unknown suicidal reason. "No," she said, gaining some confidence from his stupid question. Mr. Pellicano grew slightly agitated and asked the question again, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the jury had just heard him tell Ms. Carradine on tape that she needed to keep his wiretapping a secret. After Ms. Carradine shut him down for the second time, Mr. Pellicano moved on to another topic--the subject of betrayal. "Didn't you tell Mr. Pellicano after your grand jury testimony that you hadn't been asked about wiretapping?" Mr. Pellicano asked coldly. "Yes," Ms. Carradine shot back without any sign of remorse. Mr. Pellicano merely nodded as if resigned to her betrayal.

Next up on the stand was Adam Sender, a New York hedge fund manager with too much hair and apparently, way too much money. Mr. Sender, who came to L.A. on vacation, testified that he hooked up with a down-on-his luck producer, Aaron Russo, and then gave the producer around $1.1 million to start up a production company and make a movie. Turns out that Mr. Russon never made any movies and Mr. Sender got impatient and wanted his cash back. Mr. Russo gave him the cold shoulder and Mr. Sender hired one attorney who filed a lawsuit against the producer. When that attorney couldn't even figure out a way to serve Mr. Russo and get the ball rolling, Mr. Sender turned to Bert Fields, the so-called super lawyer from Greenberg, Glusker.

Mr. Sender testified that he met with Mr. Fields and that "Mr. Fields suggested that I work with Mr. Pellicano." Mr. Sender further explained that it was Mr. Fields who sang Mr. Pellicano's praises. "Mr. Fields told me that he was very good at what he did," said Mr. Sender. "He said that he used unorthodox methods, but that he got the job done." At Mr. Saunder's prompting, Mr. Sender noted, "Mr. Fields said that he'd worked with him [Mr. Pellicano] many times in the past and he got the job done."

Mr. Sender, sounding somewhat bitter, added that although Mr. Fields didn't take an active role in the lawsuit, another Greenberg lawyer did. (He identified that lawyer as a young associate named David Moriarty.) A few days later, Mr. Sender met with Mr. Pellicano at Mr. Sender's residence in Bel Air. It seems that since Mr. Sender decided to go into the movie business, he also decided that he needed a home in Bel Air. It was in his new west coast digs that Mr. Sender had his first in-person meeting with Mr. Pellicano. "We didn't discuss Mr. Pellicano's methods," said Mr. Sender. But apparently, they did discuss money--lots of money. Sender ended up paying Pellicano at least $500,000 to investigate Mr. Russo, and also paid another $300,000 to Greenberg Glusker. So, it seems that Mr. Sender ended up paying over $800,000 to collect on a $1.1 million debt owed him by Mr. Russo. (The math was done for him by Mr. Saunders--just in case anyone in the courtroom had missed the math.)

And, then, the government went to the tape--an audio recording of Mr. Sender talking about Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping of Mr. Russo.

Mr. Sender testified that Mr. Pellicano offered to have Mr. Russo murdered if Mr. Sender authorized it. "If I wanted to," Mr. Sender told a packed courtroom, "I could basically authorize him to have him murdered on his way back from Las Vegas..have somebody follow him back, drive him off the road and bury his body in the desert."

Mr. Saunders then inquired if Mr. Pellicano was joking. "Absolutely not," said Mr. Sender.

Read all of HuffPost's Pellicano coverage from inside the courtroom.

Comments

[diamndpeace]

Pellicano, the Studios, Scientology... Los Angeles has a wiretapping problem.

It is common. It is a common sleazy service, made available by corrupt sleaze bags in the do-anything-for-a-fee PI world, the local police, phone company employees, gossip rags, studio cops and even Soviet block immigrants who flock to Hollywood with nothing but wiretapping skills and a dream.

Watch the George Clooney movie "Michael Clayton" where Tilda Swinton expertly plays a morally compromised POS edgy paranoid corporate attorney who readily pays for wiretapping, smearing and even killing services. That movie gives good insight into a case like this. Watch how edgy she is, to the point where to her it isn't even a question of right or wrong. THAT is the kind of person who hires these scum in Hollywood. Unfortunately those are some pretty common traits in LA.

[outnow]

This thing just keeps getting worse. Frankly, I do not believe that private investigators should have licenses without having been admitted to practice law. The ones whom I have know are some of the sleaziest people on the planet. These people will do anything for money and take great pleasure in blackmail and extortion. Their sub rosa films and wiretaps are an extreme invasion of privacy. They believe that their licenses are "tin badges." Attorneys who subcontract this type of behavior to such people should serve twenty-five to life in prison. The "plausible deniability" factor makes this an extraordinarily difficult crime to detect and to prevent. It amounts to a conspiracy to obstruct justice and to deprive the victims of their constitutional rights.

[diamndpeace]

You are one hundred percent correct.

[carmenjonze]

Ms Weiner - while everybody else is freaking out over Obama/Hillary thanks for these Pellicano articles. Nobody comments on them, but I read them daily.

Thanks!

[MizJ]

I have been following the blog set up by Allison and I find it very entertaining. These people are nuts!