All and all, today was a much better day for the government at the
Pellicano trial. Even though they let Mr. Grey off the hook, throwing
him numerous soft ball questions, they did manage to get him to
repeatedly point the finger at his former attorney, Bert Fields. And,
they also managed to tell a bit of a coherent story, by putting Mr.
Dovel on after Mr. Grey, so that the jury could hear what actually
happened to Mr. Dovel's client when he went up against Brad Grey and
Bert Fields. The government managed to get testimony from Mr. Dovel
that his attorney-client privileged had been seriously breached by Mr.
Pellicano's alleged wiretapping and then Mr. Pellicano helped them out
by getting Mr. Dovel to link the wiretapping to the hideous problems
with his case.
After Mrs. Maguire did some serious damage to Mr. Pellicano by telling
the jury about their days listening to wiretaps of her soon-to-be
ex-husband, the government segued back to more of Mr. Pellicano's
alleged victims. Some dramatic testimony was elicited from Laura
Buddine, a computer and web television geek, who ended up in a vicious
feud with another computer geek, Dr. Charles Lull. Ms. Buddine
testified in a strong and straightforward voice about how Mr. Lull
stalked her after they entered into a feud and how she began to fear
for her own safety.
Following Ms. Buddine's testimony, the government finished the day with
a bang, playing an audio tape for the jury of Mr. Pellicano haggling
with Dr. Lull over the doctor's failure to pay him another $100,000.
And then hearing Mr. Pellicano, in his own voice, boasting about how
he'd made Ms. Buddine's life "absolutely miserable" and how "she's
absolutely an animal." The jury listened intently as Mr. Saunders
played the audio tape, often leaning forward with interest. Towards
the end of the tape, Mr. Pellicano offered some of the day's most
damaging testimony against himself. Speaking of Ms. Buddine on the
tape to Dr. Lull, he said, "her life has been made miserable. She
doesn't know where to go. She'd never guess in a million years that
it's coming from you." And with that, the day ended.
Court is not in session tomorrow because of Good Friday and as usual,
there are no proceedings on Monday. Mr. Saunders announced that on
Tuesday, the government intends to call Susan Hughes (another Pellicano
client), Charles Roven (an alleged victim) and Jeff Edwards. Mr.
Rovan, a producer, was allegedly wiretapped by Mr. Pellicano on behalf
of his client, director John McTiernan. So, we'll probably be hearing
Mr. McTiernan chatting about wiretapping Mr. Roven in the near future.
Read all HuffPost's coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.