Brad Grey, the head of Paramount Pictures, arrived in court this
morning with his posse of at lest five lawyers to testify in the
Pellicano trial. The government went really soft on Mr. Grey with Mr.
Lally deferentially asking him a series of questions about two
lawsuits--the Garry Shandling matter and a lawsuit filed by
screenwriter Bo Zenga in connection with "Scary Movie." Mr. Grey
testified that shortly after he and his firm resigned from representing
Garry Shandling, a lawsuit was filed against him and his then
management company, Brillstein Grey. He told the jury that his lawyer,
Bert Fields, and Greenberg Glusker were charged with the task of
overseeing the lawsuit. "Mr Bert Fields, one of the great legal minds,
was overseeing the lawsuit," said Mr. Grey of his former lawyer, who
was a subject in the investigation into Mr. Pellicano's alleged
wiretapping and allegedly illegal use of law enforcement data bases.
Mr. Grey said that Mr. Fields had "hired Pellicano in the past. My
understanding was never having been through any litigation, Mr. Fields
brought him [Mr. Pellicano] in as a matter of course." He noted that
since Mr. Fields had used the services of Mr. Pellicano in the past and
"was very comfortable with him, so was I comfortable with him."
Looking cool and collected, Mr. Grey took every opportunity to let the
jury know that he had no knowledge of any illegal activity of Mr.
Pellicano's and was unaware that any illegal information gathered by
Mr. Pellicano was used at court. When pressed by Lally if he knew for
sure that Mr. Fields or his law firm didn't use any of Mr. Pellicano's
allegedly illegal wiretaps or look-ups in their lawsuits against either
Mr. Shandling or Mr. Zenga, Mr. Grey could only say that he wasn't
aware that they did.
Mr. Pellicano declined to cross Brad Grey. The interesting thing was even as Mr. Grey praised Mr. Fields as one of the brightest legal minds in the country, he laid the entire Pellicano mess in Mr. Fields' lap, professing that it was the law firm that had all the day-to-day dealings with Mr. Fields. And, said Mr. Grey, it was his lawyer and not him, who read Mr. Pellicano's reports.
After Mr Grey gave his testimony, which really consisted of him saying
"Bert Fields, Bert Fields, Bert Fields," Gregory Dovel took the stand
to testify. Mr. Dovel, who represented Mr. Zenga in his lawsuit against
Mr. Grey, has spent the last hour testifying that many of his
conversations with his client, Bo Zenga, were wiretapped by Mr.
Pellicano. After reviewing a number of documents containing notes
about Mr. Dovel and Mr. Zenga, Mr. Dovel identified those notes as
being summaries of conversations he had with his client concerning
settlement, deposition witnesses, document and "conversations subject
to the attorney client privelege."
Read more coverage from the Pellicano trial
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Posted March 20, 2008 | 01:31 PM (EST)