My thoughts on today's proceedings were that prosecutor Kevin Lally really rocked his opening statement -- arguing calmly and efficiently that Pellicano and his merry band of men did an excellent job of providing Mr. Pellicano's clients with all types of unique services including allegedly wiretapping and all sorts of juicy confidential information. He also took a few minutes to preview how the Pellicano client's generally paid top dollar for the detective's "special services," noting at one point that former super Agent Mike Ovitz, forked over at least $75,00 to deal with a troublesome ex-New York Times' freelance reporter, Anita Busch. And once Mr. Ovitz paid the bill, according to Mr. Lally, things really got rolling with Mr. Pellicano finding out her phone numbers, address information, criminal history before he allegedly got co-defendant Rayford Turner to wiretap the reporter's phones and then, ended up getting someone else to leave a dead fish on her windshield. According to Prosecutor Lally, the Pellicano system of investigation was efficient, unique and illegal.
With Mr. Pellicano taking the occasional note, Mr. Lally went on to chatting about how Mr. Pellicano used all of his special sources -- including phone company employees, LAPD officers, Beverly Hills officers and a staff of attractive female employees to systematically obtain every kind of information on potential targets -- including numbers needed to set up a phone tap. And in a final slap to the Italian detective, Mr. Lally noted that Pellicano's computer passwords always included the term "omerta" -- the Sicilian word for code of silence. But in fact, Mr. Pellicano was his client's own worst enemy, secretly recording their conversations while at the same time, promising complete and total discretion.
The first defense attorney, Adam Braun, then stood up to give a lengthy and at times, dull explanation of how the wiretapping program Telesleuth program worked and how his client, Kevin Kachikian, was responsible for its development. Mr. Kachikian, wearing his trademark blue sweater with bright yellow lining, Birkenstocks and white socks, seemed to have purposely chosen to outfit himself traditional computer genius garb. Then, Mr. Braun went on to explain that despite Mr. Kachikian's obvious computer skills, he wasn't much of a businessman and tended to not only be cut out of lucrative deals based on his inventions, but also to not ask questions whenever asked to complete a task. As Mr. Braun told us, Mr. Kachikian developed telesleuth for Mr. Pellicano under the belief that it would only be used by law enforcement. And, even when Mr. Pellicano went off to get a patent, Mr. Kachikian understood that he wasn't getting any share of the profits and that he would probably spend the rest of his life working for pennies and living at home with his mother.
After what seemed like several hours of complex computer school -- complete with the dreaded power point presentation, Mr. Braun took his seat. Next up was Mr. Hummel, the attorney for former Sgt. Mark Arneson's, who thankfully picked up the pace arguing that his client had merely been using Mr. Pellicano as a law enforcement source and that, he looked up a few names for Mr. Pellicano merely as a quid pro quo for Mr. Pellicano's continually supply of information about "real" criminals. Mr. Hummel did a nice job of separating his client from the rest of the pack, noting that unlike some of Mr. Pellicano's other "sources of information," Mr. Arneson was very upfront about his relationship with Mr. Pellicano. Admitting that it's possible that Mr. Arneson crossed the line by looking up some people for Pellicano in the law enforcement data base, Mr. Hummel stressed that Mr. Arneson's intent was always to help the people of Los Angeles by using Mr. Pellicano as a viable and reliable source.
Mr. Pellicano did the last closing statement -- struggling hard to refer to himself as Mr. Pellicano -- he was both deferential and boastful at the same time. He wanted the jury to know that he'd had a really successful business, that fancy people paid a lot for his services and that, he gave the clients what the clients wanted. He also wanted them to know that he had a special relationship with his clients -- "it was important for them to know that their problems were his problems." (If they had the cash to pay his rather hefty fee -- he'd be there friend for life, attend a wedding and bring a good gift.) And, he basically dared the jury to decide if there was something really wrong with that. Finally, he left them with one of my favorite Pellicanoisms....."The evidence will show what it shows." And that is a fact, Jack.
Today, everyone finally got to hear what they'd all been waiting for -- Anthony Pellicano chatting with a client about what he could do for them. For the first time during the trial, the prosecution took some time today to play a little bit of Mr. Pellicano talking to a potential client, Matt Williams. The reason the prosecution played portions of the audio recording was so the jury could hear Mr. Pellicano offering to do some wiretapping. At the time of the phone call, Mr. Williams was a Diamondbacks star third baseman. During his call with Mr. Pellicano, Mr. Williams discussed his ex-wife and concerns about the various men around her. In the recorded conversation -- which was recorded by Mr. Pellicano -- he delves into the situation and asks some question about Mr. Williams current relationship as well as he ex-wife. Mr. Williams inquires into some of Mr. Pellicano's other clients. Mr. Pellicano volunteers to check out the situation, but swears Mr. Williams to secrecy. Mr. Pellicano notes in the conversation that he's going to do some listening and "listen to things that she's talking about."
Portions of the audiotape were played in court today. Mr. Williams was present. Under questioning from prosecutor Dan Saunders, he noted that he was unaware he was being recorded when talking to Mr. Pellicano. He understood that Mr. Pellicano was proposing to "listen into conversations" in an effort to investigate Mr. Williams' domestic problems. Mr. Williams testified that he was concerned about the safety of his children when they were with his ex-wife and therefore, contacted Mr. Pellicano to investigate her. Mr. Williams claimed that he chose not to hire Mr. Pellicano after the detective proposed using wiretaps. He told the jurors and the prosecutor that he didn't want to be involved in the use of wiretaps because he was aware that they were illegal.
More to come.... Come back later to do a bit of listening.
Loading comments… 
