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.