Anthony Pellicano on The Huffington Post

Georgianne Nienaber: Ivory's Ghosts: White Gold and the Fate of the Elephant

2009-03-30T12:44:51Z

Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants; John Frederick Walker. Atlantic Monthly, $25 (304p) ISBN 978-0-87113-995-5

John Frederick Walker functions as a "memorist," with his soul rooted in centuries past, as he begins his tour de force examination of the history of ivory, humankind's lust for this exquisite treasure, and the demise of the elephant and human decency in the process of this unholy quest. Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of the Elephants opens with what amounts to a past life regression as Walker performs a hypnotic literary feat, transporting the reader to stand with a hunter at sunset on the slopes of Kilimanjaro as the stalker aims his rifle at an old bull elephant with a "withered hide." He aims and his mark is true.

The old one would have sunk back on his hindquarters as his head dropped, burying the tusk points in the earth and assuming the posture of a sphinx; the heavy brow would have been propped high by the ivory posts, the trunk flopped lifelessly between.

The undisputable testimony to the authenticity of this incident rests in a photograph of the "Kilimanjaro Tusks." They remain the largest tusks ever recorded and framed the entrance to the American compound in Zanzibar known as the "Ivory House," or Nyumba Pembi. Over the years a virtual who's who of the exploiters of Africa walked under these tusks -- slavers, smugglers, colonialists, explorers, actors and actresses on safari -- an archway leading to the beginning of the end of the elephant. In 1898, when the photo was taken, Walker says:

None foresaw that less than a century later the appetite of uncontrolled commerce would threaten to consume the bulk of the remaining sub-Saharan herds that supplied it; back then, elephants in the yet to be exhausted interior were said to be as thick as flies.

Image: Kilimanjaro Tusks (1898)

At this juncture in Ivory's Ghosts, the reader is only on page three and should prepare for a dizzying trip through the ages, beginning in Paleolithic eras when carved mammoth teeth, now preserved, spoke for the voiceless giants. Tusks were carved, transformed into intricate jewelry, and ultimately buried as adornments in 28,000 year old human permafrost graves.

Walker is a scholar and a perfectionist, but his meticulous examination of the allure of ivory reads like a novel that is impossible to put down. The atrocities perpetrated against elephant and mankind in the pursuit of white gold is the proverbial tale as old as time, with no end in sight. But, the reader desires a happy ending, and Walker does not sugar coat the fact that international disputes and especially the influence of China in modern times make the denouement look grim.

China has elbowed its way into the committees at CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) in spite of its inability to control its own black market in endangered species trade. Anyone who has been to central Africa will note the burgeoning influence of China in areas where human rights and animal welfare are of grave concern. China's recent trade pact with the Kabila government of the Democratic Republic of Congo for natural resources is a good case in point.

Walker is able to present the politics of international maneuvering succinctly and takes a complicated subject, makes it palatable, and provokes outrage at the mess humans have made of wildlife management.

That is the subtext of this book and the reason it works is that the story of ivory is compelling on its own.

The United States does not get let off the hook. The ivory business in the Unites States took off with the boom of the industrial revolution. Factories in Deep River, Connecticut became the nexus for the exploitation of a resource found in Africa. When Deacon Phineas Pratt received a patent for a "comb-making machine," elephant "tusks were fed like logs into indefatigable machines." Imagine the smell of a dentist drilling into your teeth magnified a thousand times or more as ivory was fed into cutting machines that had to be water-cooled. The smell of burning animal product was disgusting as huge machines churned out piano keys and billiard balls by the millions.

The sphere of a billiard ball had to test true and this meant that female elephants paid a huge price. The tusks of the female elephant are straighter and have a linear nerve channel, making the product roll well. Pond for pound, the source of the renewal of the elephant species was sacrificed for pool halls.

Walker is a consummate storyteller, ably weaving conservation issues, politics, societal mores, international wrangling over treaties, anthropology, history, third world exploitation and slavery into a solid framework in which the history of the elephant and its compelling dentin tusks is a heartbreaking focus.

Probably the best-loved and remembered elephant for Americans is the legendary Jumbo. He dies an ignominious death -- killed by a train. Walker's description of the stuffed behemoth, as told by Shana Alexander, has the mammoth being towed on a circus wagon with his "widow" draped in black with the rest of P.T. Barnum's elephants following and trained to wipe their eyes on cue with black-bordered bed sheets.

But perhaps the most eye-opening vignette in Ivory's Ghosts has Walker standing in a storeroom in South Africa's Kruger Park. Kruger has a healthy population of at least 12,000 elephants. One of the by products of this success is tusks from dead elephants, or elephants culled because they threatened tourists or "flattened locals," but ivory bans require that this resource be stockpiled.

Image: Elephants bathing at Kruger Park (2008) © G. Nienaber

Kruger is not the only park with stockpiles of ivory recovered from elephants. In fact, one to five tons of ivory a year pile up in warehouses of the parks' departments of a dozen African countries; Zimbabwe alone adds ten. There is little agreement about what should be done with this ivory fortune. But as long as there are elephants this mountain of tusks will continue to grow.

Walker does not shy away from declaring that the demand for ivory is never going to disappear. It has been prized since the Paleolithic era, but this demand "need not be the elephant's curse."

Walker's book makes a compelling case for the tightly controlled export of ivory from Africa. He takes on animal rights groups that have fought CITES-supervised ivory sales and urges that we all need to assure the future of the people of Africa as well as the elephant. After all, it is their resource.

Ivory's Ghosts is certainly not the end of the story, but unless something is done, the world may face the end of the elephant. Walker maintains a blog where he makes a controversial case regarding legal ivory sales.

The idea that any legal ivory sales will surely encourage poaching is the mantra of anti-ivory campaigners (and widely repeated in the media), but on examination it just doesn't stand up. It's very hard to prove a causal connection between the two, as serious researchers have discovered. TRAFFIC, the joint World Wildlife Fund / IUCN wildlife trade monitoring network, says there's no hard evidence that these sales will lead to more poaching or increased illegal trade in ivory.

In fact, legal sales may help suppress poaching. CITES expects the recent sale of tusks, at which legitimate ivory reached $152 per kilogram, to undercut black market ivory, which was said to be going for up to $800 a kilogram -- and it's those inflated prices that provide the primary incentive for poaching in countries suffering from poverty and corruption.

Whether you agree with this approach to conservation or not, read Ivory's Ghosts if you have any affinity for the history and future of this magnificent animal that has been sacrificed over the ages for what amounts to the white gold of its teeth.

Finally, Walker takes a hard look at the fact that while Africa boasts pristine, successful game parks like Kruger, there are many areas on the continent where elephants are not only the victims of poaching, but where chaotic climate conditions bring drought -- a grim reaper that decimates the once great herds.

Add to that scenario the problems created by knee jerk reactions of animal rights groups and "conservationists" who do not want to see any elephant culled, even if the animal is tramping villagers and decimating crops. Africa deserves the right to manage its own wildlife.

This book is a provocative, fascinating and compelling read. Highly recommended.

John Frederick Walker is a journalist, conservationist, and artist. His writing on a wide variety of subjects, from adventure travel to wine, has appeared in a number of publications, including The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Wildlife Conservation, and Saveur. He is the author of two books on natural history, Ivory's Ghosts and A Certain Curve of Horn.

Walker has been traveling in, and reporting on, Africa since 1986, when he first became involved with endangered species conservation.

ANTHONY PELLICANO SENTENCED: Hollywood Private Eye Gets 15 Years

2008-12-15T20:16:02Z

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for running a wiretapping scheme that spied on the rich and famous.

U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer also ordered the 64-year-old Pellicano and two other defendants to forfeit a total of $2 million.

Evan Derkacz: Do Liberals "Get It" When it Comes to Fighting Fundamentalism?

2008-09-25T15:58:27Z

Has a secretive, informal network of fundamentalist Christians had undue influence over American policy? Over the summer vacation a newly unveiled Religion Dispatches convened its first round table, resulting in a lively discussion of Jeff Sharlet's new book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (Harper, 2008).

Based on article for Harper's magazine entitled "Jesus Plus Nothing," Sharlet crafted his detailed and carefully researched exploration of an informal network of powerful Christians known as "The Family," or "The Fellowship." In Sharlet's words, it's: "a story of two great spheres of belief, religion and politics, and the ways in which they are bound together by the mythologies of America."

Joining RD, along with Jeff were: Randall Balmer, author, Episcopal priest, and professor of American religious history at Barnard College; Anthea Butler, Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Rochester; and Diane Winston, the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC, who has worked as a reporter for several of the nation's leading newspapers.

Sharlet's book fills a significant gap in both scholarship and media. While plenty of time has been spent on mega-churches and the various factions of the religious right, very little work has been done on elite manifestations of religion-related power.

One of the burning questions, addressed at the very beginning of the round table, is: Do liberals "Get It"? That is, do the liberal values of dialogue and compromise actually have any effect when dealing with this powerful network? From the Roundtable:

Too many liberals put their faith in a mythical center, a set of values shared by all. Their commitment to this center is so great, in fact, that they're willing to travel any distance to get there. That's what Christian Right leader Chuck Colson understood when he wrote that he loved "dialogue" with liberals because he simply had to hold his ground and wait for them to come to him.

The discussion ranged over issues like this and was punctuated, unexpectedly, by a parenthetical gesture from one of our panelists. During the course of the round table, a critical review of the book appeared in the Washington Post by Randall Balmer.

Balmer had saved some of his most critical points for the readers of the Post, thus our discussion had a 'sidebar' of sorts. Given the last word, however, Sharlet used his closing argument to respond to Randy's offstage remarks and RD was graced with an exciting and surprise ending. Here's a sample:

Ah, sour grapes! Yes, I got 'em. Not so much because Randy radically misrepresented my arguments in the Post, where I can't respond, while offering far more nuanced arguments of his own only in this smaller and more scholarly roundtable, but because such a dichotomy represents exactly the scholarly/popular divide that allows The Family to slip between the cracks. Amongst scholars, he makes arguments that invite engagement. In the public square, he issues proclamations that do no more than police the borders of respectable knowledge, aka "conventional wisdom."

Enjoy the discussion and by all means join in with comments.

RDRoundtable: Welcome to "The Family"

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: My Final Thoughts On The Guilty Verdict

2008-05-17T17:20:00Z

So, the jury found them all guilty--the former private eye, Anthony Pellicano, the former cop, Mark Arneson, the former phone guy, Ray Turner, the former computer consultant, Kevin Kachikian and one former client, Abner Nicherie.

I apologize to everyone for not writing about the guilty verdicts sooner, but I was in New York on other business when the jury came back.

Unfortunately, I missed the final act of the Pellicano courtroom drama. After speaking with some of the defense attorneys and others present in the courtroom when the verdicts came back, I heard that both prosecutors, Daniel Saunders and Kevin Lally were quite pleased with the jury's verdicts. Mr. Saunders and Mr. Lally were confident that justice had been done in this case. But I didn't need to be in the courtroom to know that both prosecutors felt that this was an important case and that Mr. Saunders, in particular, believed that he'd done a great service to the community by convicting Mr. Pellicano and friends. One needed only to listen to his final argument to understand that Mr. Saunders believed that his approach to this problem--his successful prosecution of Mr. Pellicano and several of the conspirators on trial--would finally keep Mr. Pellicano's wealthy and influential clients from using all the detective's very effective illegal tactics to defeat and often destroy their adversaries.

It's clear that many potential plaintiffs and defendants who in the future find themselves involved in litigation will benefit from Mr. Saunders' and Mr. Lally's hard work. The fact that Mr. Pellicano is no longer on the scene, ready and willing to sell his illegal services to the highest and most influential bidder, is definitely a plus for someone who decides to sue a rich and powerful member of our community.

At the very least, one has to admit that the government's conviction of Mr. Pellicano and friends has definitely made wiretapping services less available to the attorneys who handle high end divorces and to all those litigators who tend to service many of Hollywood's most powerful players. And of course, it's going to be harder for all of Mr. Pellicano's well known clients--those who relied on him in case and after case to help them win. Those people will definitely have to re-adjust following these guilty verdicts. Those people are definitely going to have to find a new way of doing business. After all, Mr. Pellicano was around a long time and he had a lot of repeat business.

And worst of all, a lot of the people who used him, now find themselves facing a myriad of civil lawsuits and they're going to have to go it alone--without their favorite private eye on the job. Tough news for many of the town's most rich, famous and powerful citizens.

On the other hand, the clients and the lawyers who used Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping services shouldn't be too depressed about this verdict.

Rather, they might want to consider celebrating this verdict since these rich and powerful members of our community now know for a certainty what many of us already suspected, they are truly above the law. They got away with it--the wiretapping, the harassment, the threats--and the best part is that nobody really seems to care.

These former clients know that if they want to get another private detective to wiretap some annoying reporter's phone and threaten her with a dead fish, nothing will happen to them. They won't go to jail. And the rest of us now know that it's fine for some people--like Susan Maguire or Adam Sender or Andrew Stevens--to pay someone to illegal wiretap, to listen to those wiretaps and to even admit it all as long as those people are wealthy and can afford at least one (or in some cases two or three) great defense lawyers. We've also now understand that it is definitely not fine for other people---poor people like Abner Nicherie--to break the law, pay someone else to wiretap and then listen to those wiretaps. Lesson learned.

But don't think that all these rich and powerful people totally got away with what they did.

Naturally, there was a bit of a downside to breaking the law for some of these rich and famous clients.

They did, after all, have to be interviewed by the F.B.I. And, they did, in some cases, have to pay lawyers to negotiate limited use immunity agreements. And some had to actually endure the indignity of coming downtown and testifying. (It was a special sort of hell for a lot of those Westside clients to have to go east of the 405. Probably worse than going to prison for some.) For some, it was also all terribly embarrassing. There were tapes of them leaked on the Internet and even though they tried to put a stop to that, there wasn't much they could do. And for others, who'd been promised that their ties to Anthony Pellicano would forever remain a secret and that their statements to the F.B.I. would never see the light of day, there was the unbearable indignity of having portions of those interviews either published in the paper or even posted on the internet in a blog---all very low brow and very humiliating. Finally, for a few of Mr. Pellicano's clients, they were forced to endure not only the humiliation of having the public find out they'd hired Mr. Pellicano, but also they had to watch as their private conversations with Mr. Pellicano about their most hated of enemies ended up being posted on the internet. And this time around, there wasn't much they could do besides trying to get the government to make it all stop.

But, the actual bottom line is that even with a few embarrassing and inconvenient moments, the rich and powerful citizens of Los Angeles (and a few other places) didn't have to go to jail. And, now they can stop worrying--if they ever really did-- about what the government is going to do next. From everything that's we've seen in the days following the verdict, the government seems more than satisfied that they got all the bad guys--all those really, really bad people involved who were involved in this conspiracy.

The government is satisfied with convicting Mr. Pellicano and then with dragging a few other names through the mud by producing hundreds of documents that "suggest" that those names hired Mr. Pellicano to engage in illegal wiretapping or at the very least, hired Mr. Pellicano and then turned the other way while he did what he used to do better than anyone else in town.

But there are still some important unanswered questions about this case.

One can't help but wonder about why in a case against just Mr. Pellicano and a former phone guy, computer guy, cop and client, three quarters of the documents turned over to the defense during the discovery process (including lots and lots of audiotapes), related to star attorney Bert Fields, Paramount head Brad Grey and former super agent, Michael Ovitz, despite the fact that none of these men were charged. Mr. Fields repeatedly and publicly denied knowing about Mr. Pellicano's illegal conduct. And, both Mr. Grey and Mr. Ovitz testified under oath that they had no knowledge of any kind about Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping or other illegal activities. So, if everyone denied knowledge of any illegal activity and the government declined to prosecute any of the aforementioned men, why then did the government turn over the documents that it did in this particular case?

Why did the government turn over audio recordings of one of Mr. Fields' young associates telling Mr. Pellicano that he didn't care at all about how Mr. Pellicano got his information as long as the detective was successful? Why did the government turn over to the defense attorneys in this case all of the business records relating to the litigation involving Brad Grey and former client, Garry Shandling? Why did the government turn over to the defense all of Mr. Ovitz's calendar for 2001-2002, which included all of his appointments for the year--except for the ones he made with Mr. Pellicano? And, why, if the government had no intention of ever prosecuting Mr. Fields, did the government force Greenberg Glusker to turn over file after file of cases in which either Mr. Fields or his partners hired Mr. Pellicano? What was the point of all that? Why didn't the F.B.I. care when Mr. Grey made contradictory statements to the F.B.I., but then turned around and prosecuted Mr. Nicherie for doing the same thing? And why, even after Mr. Ovitz admitted that he'd hired Mr. Pellicano to investigate at least four known victims in this case and admitted that he'd paid him at least $75,000 in cash for doing that and was heard on an audiotape setting up a meeting with the investigator, that Mr. Ovitz was required to merely testify briefly in court?

The fact that three quarters of the documents turned over by the government related to Mr. Fields, his client Brad Grey and matters involving Mr. Pellicano can be interpreted in two ways: a.) the government collected all these documents and then decided that there wasn't enough evidence to indict Mr. Fields , or b.) the government preferred to merely suggest that Mr. Fields and Mr. Grey were guilty through hundreds of documents without having to endure the messy and often difficult process of having to prove that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (The government would argue, of course, that the public was never supposed to see the bulk of these documents. But when documents are produced during a legal proceeding--including F.B.I. interviews with some of the most famous and wealthy people in the country--it's a pretty safe assumption that at least a few of those documents will become public.)

But whatever the reason for producing these documents, the fact remains that there are hundreds of documents--including audio tapes--that show that members of the law firm of Greenberg Glusker worked closely with Mr. Pellicano for years--particularly on behalf of client and Paramount studio chief, Brad Grey--and these documents show that at least some of the lawyers at Greenberg Glusker knew that Mr. Pellicano was wiretapping. There are also documented F.B.I. interviews with more than one of Mr. Fields' clients that suggest that Mr. Fields, as well as other Greenberg attorneys, knew that Mr. Pellicano was obtaining some of his information through illegal means. (There are also documents that weren't turned over to the defense that also suggest that Mr. Fields knew about Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping activities.) There was even testimony at the trial by one of Mr. Fields' clients that Mr. Fields told him through careful language that Mr. Pellicano used suspect investigative methods, but that those methods were effective. And, another one of Greenberg Glusker's clients testified at trial that when she found out that Mr. Pellicano was illegally recording her soon-to-be ex-husband, she tried to tell her lawyers at Greenberg, but they refused to listen. Naturally, the prosecutors didn't ask her why her lawyers refused to listen when she tried to tell them about the illegal recordings or what exactly they thought she was going to say. Did the lawyers put their fingers in their ears and sing when she started to talk about what Mr. Pellicano was up to in his office on Sunset or did they just push her out the door and pretend that she was never there? No one asked. The prosecution didn't need or want a witness on the stand talking about how her Greenberg Glusker lawyers either knew what she was about to say or that they went to great lengths to not listen to what she was about to say. They weren't interested in prosecuting Greenberg Glusker...at least not by the time the trial started.

I suppose, like any prosecutor with any political savvy at all, neither Mr. Saunders nor Mr. Lally relished the idea of going up against any of L.A.'s rich and powerful citizens who likely would have hired an army of incredible attorneys to defend them. The one thing that the prosecution would have known for sure is that none of these guys would have pulled a Pellicano and ended up defending themselves. The prosecution of a former cop, a former phone guy and a computer geek is one thing, but going after L.A.'s rich and powerful is quite another. It was probably the better decision to stick with a poor former client like Mr. Nicherie than to try and convict someone with the funds of an Adam Sender or even an Andrew Stevens, let alone a Michael Ovitz. And besides, Mr. Ovitz denied knowing about any of Mr. Pellicano's illegal activity. So, that always make it harder when someone won't just roll over and admit they did something illegal or when you don't have more than thirty audio recordings of them chatting about wiretapping like they do in the Terry Christensen case. So, absent at least thirty audio recordings of a client chatting about wiretapping, better to go after the little guys and get a big victory then actually have to prosecute someone who could make their lives a real living hell. If the government is expecting Mr. Christensen's trial to bear any resemblance to the one they just completed, they're in for a rude awakening. When Mr. Christensen allegedly agreed to wiretap Ms. Kerkorian and make her life a living hell, he was working for a client. So, if he'd go to that much trouble for Mr. Kerkorian, imagine how hard he'll be willing to fight in order to save his own career and to keep himself out of prison?

And so, as Mr. Saunders said in his closing arguments, prosecutors have effectively cut off Mr. Pellicano's supply of illegal services to many of his wealthy and powerful clients. But, although Mr. Pellicano is heading off to jail, no one should forget that his clients--all of those people who had no trouble paying big money for his services--are still around and more likely than ever to employ a strategy of total destruction against their adversaries. Even as the former victims emboldened by the verdict promise to bring these former clients to justice in civil court, they should proceed with extreme caution. Just in case these plaintiffs forgot, these former clients of Mr. Pellicano who they're preparing to take to court--these are the folks that now know for certain that they're above the law.

Read the complete coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.

Anita Busch, Journalist Threatened By Anthony Pellicano, Calls For Investigation Of LA Times' Pellicano Reporter

2008-05-16T19:22:49Z

Anita Busch, a former L.A. Times reporter who was allegedly threatened by Anthony Pellicano -- has released the following statement regarding Pellicano's conviction:

I'd like to thank the judge and jury for their patience and wisdom on this case as well as the honest people in law enforcement who stopped others from being relentlessly attacked and terrorized. For that, I am eternally grateful.

The full story of Pellicano's reach has yet to be told. To Pellicano and his wealthy clients, 'winning' meant completely obliterating someone's life and livelihood. They saw the media as just another weapon in their arsenal and used and abused it to go after anyone in their crosshairs. For example, they used their PR connection to plant items in the New York Post's Page Six to slam victims like Bo Zenga and Garry Shandling. And when their targets became FBI agent Stan Ornellas and U.S. attorney Dan Saunders, they tried to smear and discredit these decent men in the pages of the L.A. Times. The Pellicano case coverage in the L.A. Times as reported by Chuck Philips (who told the NY Times that Pellicano was his longtime news source) should be examined. It's a case study of how Pellicano worked his media relationships to try to destroy his adversaries.

Hollywood Private Eye Convicted In Wiretap

2008-05-15T21:51:15Z

Anthony Pellicano, the ripped-from-a-pulp-novel private eye who made himself an indispensable fixer for Hollywood stars and moguls, was found guilty in federal court Thursday of racketeering, wiretapping and other charges.

The jury of eight men and four women deliberated nine days before finding Mr. Pellicano, 64, guilty of 76 of the 77 counts against him, mostly in connection with his extensive wiretapping operation, which he used to dig up dirt on business enemies and former spouses of his powerful clients.

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Confusing Jury Deliberations

2008-05-06T13:45:58Z

The latest update from the Pellicano jury room is that the jury deliberations are proving to be as confusing as the actual case. The jury has come back with at least one question every day since they started deliberating. Some of the questions from the other day seemed to indicate that perhaps the government might be in trouble, but then the questions from yesterday and today, might be interpreted the opposite way. So, based on the jury's questions, it's still risky at this point to predict any type of verdict or whether they'll reach a verdict at all. It does seem that they're confused about the different elements of different counts--which could mean that they're considering those particular charges at this time. Or, they could be considering the various charges out of order. Basically, expert trial watchers as well as some of those involved in the case aren't even close to drawing any conclusions.

Specifically, the jury has asked for some clarification on jury instructions relating to Mark Arneson which touched off an argument between the defense and the prosecution as to how to respond. The jury sent out a note to the judge wondering if they could have additional clarification on what intent is required on charges of honest services wire fraud. After argument, the judge told the jury that they couldn't have any additional clarification. There was also a note on the identity theft charges and whether they each had to affect interstate commerce. The question from the jury was basically "does each alleged act for purposes of RICO have to affect interstate commerce?" The answer from the judge, "with respect to each alleged RICO act charging identify theft, the possession, transfer or use had to affect interstate commerce." There was an additional request this morning as to whether the jury could have an example of a RQH code run and the court said no.

I will post as soon as I know anything more...as in whether the jury might be close to reaching a verdict. STAY TUNED.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: The Jury Has The Case

2008-05-01T16:38:36Z

As promised, Mr. Saunders (and his buddy Mr. Lally who wore matching suits for this final day of trial) got the last word. It was all Mr. Saunders in the last stretch of this trial, taking his final opportunity to argue against almost every single point brought up by the defense. He said that he wasn't going to do that--but, he couldn't quite resist. He's only human, after all. But honestly, the key thing that happened during Mr. Saunders' closing is that it finally became clear exactly what the government actually thinks that it's accomplishing by trying to convict Mr. Pellicano and his merry band of alleged co-conspirators. Mr. Saunders said it all at the end of his final rebuttal--"This isn't a case about Hollywood...Sylvester Stallone, Brad Grey or even Michael Ovitz," he explained to the courtroom. "This is a case about greed and the perversion of the justice system." See, now that's what I thought in the beginning as well, way back when the F.B.I. first raided Mr. Pellicano's offices. But then, things went differently than most of the people in this town expected. Because the general perception was that this case actually was about greed and the perversion of the justice system (that just happened to occur in Hollywood of all places), we expected that those who'd abused and perverted this system of justice would be prosecuted. But, Mr. Saunders had a different perspective on the issue which he finally shared with us in the closing moments of this trial and six year investigation. "This is about Bo Zenga having the same rights in a courtroom as Brad Grey," he said with conviction. "This is about Larry Nagler [Mr. Stallone's attorney] having the same right to have confidential conversations with his clients as Bert Fields." Okay, again, that's what I thought. And then, the big finish, "this is a case about people who believed that justice could be bought for a $25,000 non-refundable retained." Now, again, that's what we all thought, but then why didn't government prosecute all these people who thought that? Wait a minute...wait a minute, it's coming, ah yes, no one prosecuted those people because they're all too rich and too powerful to go after and put in prison. So, one is left to conclude that even though Mr. Pellicano and his alleged criminal enterprise might be out of commission, the people who thought they could buy just justice $25,000 retainer were absolutely right. Not only did they think they could do it, they actually did it and they got away with it.

And yes, Mr. Saunders did tell us that it wasn't the government's fault that some of these people were able to buy justice for $25,000 non-refundable retainers and not face any consequences. He did make the point that he'd decided not to go after the clients in this case and that was because of different reasons--statute of limitations problems, the fact that some of the incriminating conversations were found by the F.B.I. after they'd cut deals with clients (oh well) and then, because every case needs witnesses and sometimes, you have to use some of the people who were involved in criminal activity. (Some of the time?) But, his major argument and central stated reason for putting his focus on Mr. Pellicano and some of his sources of information: "the government attacked not the demand, but the supply." And by going after former Sgt. Arneson, who Mr. Saunders characterized as part of Mr. Pellicano's RICO machine, he was busy shutting down the suppliers of illegally obtained information. His goal was to get the jury to look at the bigger picture--the fact that the government went after the illegal machine and shut that machine down. He compared the government's choice to not go after the clients, but rather Mr. Pellicano and friends to the choice often made by law enforcement to not go after the johns in a prostitution ring, but rather the prostitutes. Therefore, we can all understand--and I hope this is of some comfort to Mr. Shandling and Mr. Zenga and Ms. Doucett and Mr. Stallone and Mr. Bernier and Mr. Casey and everyone else who knows better than anyone that justice can be bought in this town for $25,000--that the government made a conscious choice to prosecute Mr. Pellicano and his merry gang of alleged co-conspirators rather than to go after his clients or the lawyers like Mr. Fields and others who hired him again and again and again.

So, that government decision to go after Mr. Pellicano (and Mr. Turner and Mr. Arneson and Mr. Kachikian and for some still unexplained reason, Mr. Nicherie) has got to make someone feel better about the justice system here in town. The people who abused the system and paid millions to keep the Pellicano machine functioning--and that would be the people who basically make up the very top echelons of society on both coasts and particularly here in Los Angeles including many of the town's top attorneys--all of those guys and gals are never going to do anything illegal again because they now know that they'll end up punished. Oh wait, that's not true. They now know that they're free to go and find themselves another criminal enterprise and get back to business as usual since none of them got prosecuted. And the lesson is--and I hope that Mr. Christensen who is still practicing is listening--you need to make sure that the private eye who is doing wiretapping for you isn't all recording you. (Mr. Christensen has plead not guilty and has denied all knowledge of any illegal wiretapping activity by Mr. Pellicano on his or his client's behalf.) As for Mr. Pellicano's alleged victims--those people who spent most of their time on the stand authenticating DMV and criminal history runs done by Mr. Pellicano instead of actually getting to tell the jury the horrible things that happened to them because of those runs--those people whose privacy was invaded and who got lost in litigation because the other side knew all of their private and confidential legal information, well, those guys are going to have to be content with the fact that Pellicano is gone and that the rich people in this town are going to have to pay someone else to set up a new system. It's good to finally have some clarity on this issue.

It's clear that Mr. Saunders gets what happened here. He knows that these rich people were abusing the legal system and he knows that it was a disgusting abuse of the process and that a lot of people took advantage of what Mr. Pellicano and friends had to offer. It's just that he's obviously got a different perspective on how to fix the problem. He didn't think that the way to destroy the perversion of the legal system was to indict the lawyers and the clients who abused that system by paying Mr. Pellicano to do all sorts of illegal and often horrible things to their adversaries. Mr. Saunders thought that the better way to deal with this problem. Based on Mr. Saunders final comments about how he was trying to clean up the legal system by shutting down Mr. Pellicano, I can only guess that he thought if the government destroyed and dismantled this one corrupt private investigation organization with its sophisticated technology and well placed sources, then it would send a message to all these wealthy clients and lawyers who think they're above the law. And then, and I have to confess that I'm just guessing here, they'd be more cautious about hiring a similar private eye and his merry band of friends to replace Mr. Pellicano. It's a nice thought and a noble quest, even if it's not terribly realistic.

Frankly, all Mr. Saunders had to do to understand how little effect this trial has had on the people who hired Mr. Pellicano is to spend one evening at a westside party listening to them chat about how they're still hiring many of the attorneys who they know clearly used Mr. Pellicano for wiretapping. Some of these wealthy movers and shakers in Los Angeles think, if anything, that those attorneys that used Mr. Pellicano are the kind of advocates they want working for them--it's almost as if using Mr. Pellicano has been come a calling card for additional business for some of these litigators.

The thing that's really annoying about this case and seems to be lost on everyone is that the people who perverted this system along with Mr. Pellicano--those rich and famous upstanding citizens of this community--very few of them have publicly expressed any remorse for what they'd done to their enemies or in some cases, even admitted to doing anything wrong at all. Brad Grey, who has denied knowing that Mr. Pellicano did anything illegal on his behalf in either the Shandling case or the Zenga case, only admitted to paying Mr. Pellicano quite a bit more than his $25,00 retainer to work for him on both cases. He told the jury that he had no idea that Mr. Pellicano was wiretapping and that all dealings about the case with Mr. Pellicano were done by his attorney, Bert Fields. And then, Mr. Grey, walked off the stand and back to his job as the head of Paramount Studios without so much as an apology to either Mr. Shandling or Mr. Zenga. After all, what does he have to apologize for? He wasn't indicted or accused of any crime by the government. As for Mr. Fields, he never even made an appearance in court, but then why would he? As Mr. Saunders told the jury, this was about destroying the heart of Mr. Pellicano's enterprise and going after people who perverted the justice system. So, why would Mr. Fields, who merely told Mr. Grey, Adam Sender, Ken Starr and Andrew Stevens to hire Mr. Pellicano have to do with the prosecution's case? For that matter, what was Mr. Ovitz doing in court either? He just hired Mr. Pellicano to get dirt on people like Anita Busch, Bernard Weinraub, David Geffen, Ron Meyer and a list of others. Yes, Mr. Pellicano worked for him, but he didn't know what he was doing and that was enough for the government to not charge him with any crime.

As for Mr. Arneson, well, the government wasn't as kind. They said that he had to know what he was doing because he worked with Mr. Pellicano, doing runs, for years. And, Mr. Kachikian also worked with Mr. Pellicano for years on Telesleuth and then there was Ray Turner, who also worked with Mr. Pellicano for years. (I'm still trying to figure out why Mr. Nicherie got charged for listening to wiretaps when all those other guys who did the same thing got a pass. Maybe, just maybe, it's because he's not rich and he didn't have a lawyer when he talked to the F.B.I. Or as his attorney, Mr. Semenza so eloquently argued, it's because the real client had the cash and the pull to get herself a deal with the government.)

Clearly, certain people who worked with Mr. Pellicano for years were held accountable for knowing certain things about what he did and other people, who also worked with Mr. Pellicano for years were believed by the government when they said they knew nothing about what Mr. Pellicano was doing. What's wrong with this pictures? And why aren't more people outraged by what's happened here? Why don't more of the town's movers and shakers give a damn that the legal system was for sale? Are they so sure that they won't end up the wrong end of the next Pellicano? Maybe, they are. But the good thing is that even though we still have to worry about the rich and powerful abusing the system and setting up another allegedly criminal enterprise to deal with their enemies, we know that at least Mr. Pellicano, who by his own admission did most of the information gathering and "the winning" at any cost will end up in prison for the rest of his life as well as his merry band of alleged information gatherers who were busy trying to make some extra bucks like the poor telephone worker, the police officer, the computer technician and again for some reason, Abner Nicherie. Those guys--who sadly can be replaced in a minute by other poor guys looking to make a buck- it's likely that those guys won't be around to bother anyone. Oddly enough, that doesn't really make me feel like anyone who sues someone powerful in this town will have the same legal rights as the powerful people whose authority they dare to challenge.

And so, the jury has the case. The prosecutors and the defense attorneys have shaken hands and I'm sitting in the hallway wondering about how so many people who broke the law walked away from this mess without so much as a scratch.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Closing Arguments: Final Thoughts

2008-04-30T15:30:01Z

We finished up the day with final closing by Adam Braun, the attorney for computer genius Kevin Kachikian. All of the defense attorneys did a decent job today of discrediting aspects of the government's case, but there were a few things about Mr. Hummel and Mr. Braun's closing that were extraordinarily good. Mr. Hummel did a really smooth job of using Agent Ornellas' testimony to help out former Sgt. Arneson. Along with pointing out that Mr. Ornellas (along with Mr. Pellicano) asked Mr. Arneson to do a run for him, he read back the portion of Agent Ornellas' testimony where he admitted that he hadn't bothered to compare any of the runs done by Mr. Arneson to numerous arrest made by Mr. Arneson.

But frankly, the best part of Mr. Hummel's close came when he finally allowed himself to get emotional about the facts leading up to former Sgt. Arneson's arrest. He talked about his client, who'd admitted to the government that he'd illegally run names for Mr. Pellicano, was unable to tell the government that he also knew about Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping activities. Mr. Hummel's voice rose as he recounted the tale of how his client ended up being charged with RICO in this case--arguing that it happened because he refused, unlike other witnesses, to tell the government what it wanted to hear. Instead of quoting John Adams, Mr. Hummel opted to compare Mr. Arneson to John Proctor, the ultimately persecuted character in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. Mr. Hummel told the jury about how the character of John Proctor in The Crucible had an adulterous relationship with a servant girl named Abigail Williams who after he ended the relationship, told authorities that Mr. Proctoer was a witch. While Mr. Procter repeatedly admitted to the sin of adultery, he refused to admit to being a witch even though it could save his life. Mr. Hummel argued that similarly, Mr. Arneson has spent the last five years willing to admit to doing runs for Mr. Pellicano, but refusing to admit what he didn't know--that Mr. Pellicano was involved in illegal wiretapping. "The beauty of our constitution," argued Mr. Hummel, "is that we don't convict people for not admitting what they didn't do." And, he added, there has been no evidence that Mr. Arneson knew of Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping. He pointed to testimony by Agent Ornellas' testimony is which he actually said that he'd found no evidence that Mr. Arneson knew about Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping. "What has the government proved besides that the audit?" Mr. Hummel said.

He also took time to talk about police officer Craig Stevens, who plead guilty and cooperated with the government. Referencing Mr. Stevens' phone call to Mr. Saunders' voice mail in which he volunteered to do anything to help the situation, Mr. Hummel suggested that Mr. Arneson could have taken similar action and avoided prosecution if he'd been willing to say that he knew things about Mr. Pellicano which he did not. Mr. Hummel quoted Mr. Stevens as telling Mr. Saunders on the voice mail that he was willing "to testify against someone" and that he was throwing himself at Mr. Saunders' mercy.

Then, Mr. Hummel took a moment to point out all the other witnesses who seemingly had thrown themselves at Mr. Saunders' mercy, testified that they knew about wiretapping and walked away uncharged. He said "Mr. Saunders told you yesterday that there was big money involved, let me put this in perspective for you. My client was not a high priced talent manager or a famous comedian or someone who got rich off of hedge funds," said Mr. Hummel. "He was someone busy protecting our streets. Where are the others who reaped the benefits of Mr. Pellicano's services," he asked with indignation.

He wondered where was Adam Sender, who admitted to listening to wiretaps. Where was Andrew Stevens? Where was Freddie DeMann or Susan Hughes? They were all uncharged despite their admissions of listening to wiretaps. So, Mr. Hummel's point seemed to be that the secret password to getting off in this case was to admit to wiretapping -- or if you didn't want to do that, you could just blame it on your lawyer. "And you didn't hear from Bert Fields?" Mr. Hummel pointed out. "Witnesses testified that he hired Pellicano repeatedly, but the government didn't call him." Mr. Hummel looked over at the jury who suddenly seemed to be listening. "Everyone else who said they used his services but had no knowledge of his wiretapping, none of those folks were prosecuted," Mr. Hummel stated. But when it came to Mark Arneson, the government just wouldn't take no for an answer. And so, according to Mr. Hummel, Mr. Arneson ended up charged with RICO -- despite the fact that Agent Ornellas admitted that he wasn't involved in threats against Pellicano clients, didn't know about the wiretapping and never listened to any transcripts.

Then, Adam Braun closed on behalf of Mr. Kachikian, deftly pointing out that the government had failed to introduce any evidence that showed his client knew that Mr. Pellicano was illegally using his Telesleuth program. Mr. Braun argued that Mr. Saunders wanted the jury to convict Mr. Kachikian on the theory of "how could he not have known." Mr. Braun argued that Mr. Kachikian wasn't as smooth or as sophisticated as the other people in Mr. Pellicano's circles, that he wasn't used to swimming with sharks like agents in the entertainment industry and heads of studios and that it was completely feasible that Mr. Kachikian, who rarely worked in the office, was completely unaware of Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping activities. "Even Tarita Virtue [a former Pellicano employee who testified for the government] said it took her six to seven months to figure out that she was listening to wiretapped phone calls," said Mr. Braun of Mr. Pellicano's ability to hide information from his employees when he chose to do so. He then went after Tarita Virtue, a former employee who spoke with the government at least thirteen times, and testified under a use immunity agreement. Telling the jury that the testimony of government cooperators should be viewed with suspicion, particularly one like Ms. Virtue who'd changed her story a multitude of times, Mr. Braun argued that government witnesses were put under such pressure in this case that they were willing and did say anything the government asked. Mr. Braun also noted that even when the stories of the government witnesses changes--like in Ms. Virtue's case--the government didn't pause to evaluate whether the witness should still take the stand.

Mr. Braun argued that Ms. Virtue had thirteen meetings with the government in which she was asked about wiretapping and Mr. Kachikian and never told a single thing about Mr. Kachikian. But in her fourteenth meeting with the government before trial, she said that Mr. Kachikian had known about Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping. "Anyone every heard of the expression fourteen times a charm?" Mr. Braun asked sarcastically before muttering, "no." Mr. Braun went on to summarize what he believed was the central question the jury should be asking about his client. "The real question is how someone [like Mr. Kachikian] can be a knowing participant in a conspiracy and there not be any evidence " of that conspiracy, said Mr. Braun. He then went on to argue that there wasn't any evidence of a single call in which Mr. Kachikian discussed wiretapping with Mr. Pellicano--despite the hundreds of recordings seized by the government. He noted there wasn't a conversation in any coded language testified to by any witness and there wasn't even an email. Finally, Mr. Braun brought home his argument by noting that "Mr. Pellicano duped Mr. Kachikian. Mr. Pellicano swam in sophisticated waters with Hollywood agents and his clients were enormously wealthy people who cheated on their spouses and then represented themselves to be pillars of the community," noted Mr. Braun. Basically, he was telling us that Mr. Pellicano moved in a real smooth, deceitful world of powerful people and that Mr. Kachikian was no match for this particular private detective who was used to dealing with these sophisticated sharks. "If he had been one of these people," said Mr. Braun, "an agent from CAA or a studio chief, perhaps he would have learned about the illegal wiretapping and if he would have learned, he would have left."

Meanwhile, Mr. Saunders spent the day objecting to some of Mr. Braun's improper questions about who the government should have called to testify in this case and the law governing reasonable doubt. Mr. Saunders seemed on edge today, taking furious notes and showing irritation during Mr. Braun's closing argument. Before Mr. Pellicano got up to testify, there was a strange moment in the trial, where Mr. Saunders walked over to Mr. Pellicano, seemingly to give him some instruction on his closing argument. But as he approached, Mr. Pellicano reached out and shook his hand. Mr. Saunders stood there awkwardly, seemingly unsure of how to disengage his own paw. Fortunately, the judge saved him by indicating that the jury was about to come back. Mr. Pellicano smiled broadly as he watched Mr. Saunders walk back to the government's table.

Tomorrow Mona Soo Hoo will close on behalf of Ray Turner, the former telephone employee and Lawrence Semenza will close on behalf of Abner Nicherie. During the trial, Mr. Semenza declined to present a defense for Mr. Nicherie, noting that the government had failed to meet its burden of proof. Nicherie is accused of paying Mr. Pellicano to wiretap Ami Shafrir and of listening to wiretaps in Mr. Pellicano's office. After the closing arguments, the case will go to the jury.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Delivers Own (Hysterical) Closing Arguments

2008-04-30T13:48:49Z

Mr. Hummel, who represents Mark Arneson, spent an hour delivering a compact, compelling closing argument as to why Mr. Arneson should be found innocent. He started off admitting what he'd admitted in his opening--Mr. Arneson did in fact do hundreds of computer runs for Mr. Pellicano over the years. He acknowledged that Mr. Arneson "had crossed the line and was sorry for doing it." After that admission, he went on to use the testimony of government witness and lead investigative agent, Stan Ornellas, to prove that Mr. Arneson hadn't been part of any RICO conspiracy. Noting that it was Mr. Arneson who'd called Mr. Ornellas to the stand, Mr. Hummel pointed out that we "called him to tell you what they actually found in their investigation." He pointed out in a chart for the jury, showing Mr. Ornellas' testimony, that the agent never "found any evidence linking Mr. Arneson to wiretapping." Something that a lot of the other witnesses who are not charged in this case can't really say. And, then there was Agent Ornellas testimony regarding whether Mr. Arneson was involved in threatening any of Mr. Pellicano's clients. "No," again said Mr. Ornellas. And in a particularly interesting excerpt, Mr. Hummel pointed out that when asked whether Mr. Arneson had failed to arrest someone or pursue a lead because of his association with Mr. Pellicano--something that Mr. Saunders hammered on yesterday--Mr. Hummel pointed out that Mr. Ornellas had found no evidence that showed Sgt. Arneson had failed to do complete investigations or make arrests because of his work for Mr. Pellicano.

Mr. Pellicano gave his closing argument and it was definitely a
classic. Following on the heels of Mr. Hummel's precise account of
what exactly Mr. Arneson did for Mr. Pellicano--ran DMV and criminal
history--Mr. Pellicano argued that he was a lone ranger who kept things
to himself "and only allowed others to learn what HE wanted them to
learn." Jettisoning the whole John Adams "fact is a stubborn thing"
quote used by Mr. Saunders yesterday, Mr. Pellicano went with his own
founding father--Benjamin Franklin. "Benjamin Franklin said that the
only way to keep a secret when three people are involved is if two
people are dead." And so, he launched into a summary of exactly how he
ran his business. "There was no criminal enterprise," Mr. Pellicano
argued. There was just a private investigator who was also an audio
expert solving problems for his clients through the analysis of
information. And of course, there was an end goal. "Winning," said
Mr. Pellicano, "that's what it was all about." He proudly stated that
his business cards should have read "I deliver." Noting with a smile
to the jury that that's exactly what Mr. Pellicano did "not only
private celebrity clients but for law enforcement" for over thirty
years.

Mr. Pellicano then addressed the testimony during the trial from his
immunized employees and clients who all agreed on one thing--he was
secretive. "Mr. Pellicano never allowed clients to know what he was
doing and for good reason," said Mr. Pellicano about himself. A
statement that undoubtedly gave the government a chance to smile. And
then, he said what everyone at this trial already knows, but what the
government didn't manage to prove about Mr. Pellicano's
clients--"Everyone who hired him knew what they were getting."

Mr. Pellicano then took a moment to address the value of the
information provided by Mr. Arneson, agreeing with Mr. Hummel's
argument that he basically used those runs from Mr. Arneson to confirm
information that he already knew. He referenced how the information
from former Sgt. Arneson contained information from DMV runs and also
license plate numbers. "Boy, having that information, case closed," he
said sarcastically, breaking into a big smile. "Not really." He then
went on to specify the nature of his relationship with Mr. Arneson,
noting that "most of the time I had that information and just got it
verified."

And then there were complements for the government. Mr. Pellicano told
the jury that they'd done a good job of pointing out what was in those
runs, over and over again. It probably wasn't lost on the jury how
many weeks of testimony were devoted to Pellicano targets identifying
their personal phone numbers and license plate numbers on runs faxed
to Mr. Pellicano by Mr. Arneson. But Mr. Pellicano insisted that just
because he got information from a bunch of different sources, didn't
mean that he was running a criminal enterprise. "Because," Mr.
Pellicano noted, "if that means that I was running a criminal
enterprise that means that every private eye in the country is running
an enterprise and even some of the journalists here." He looked over
in my direction with a smile. Mr. Saunder vehemently objected and the
judge ordered the question stricken--but everyone was still smiling as
Mr. Pellicano continued his argument.

He also tried to point out to the jury that there was a lot of evidence
they hadn't heard. He noted that they never would have learned the
contents of his private calls with clients if the government had seized
them from his office--something that we all kind of all know by now,
but something that clearly is still bugging Mr. Pellicano. He then
took the opportunity to bait the government about how although they got
some calls from his records, there were lots of calls they couldn't
decrypt...something that the government admitted in closing. "You
didn't hear all of those recordings and they may have had more evidence
to assist you," Mr. Pellicano said before Mr. Saunders exploded with
another objection. Well, nobody wants the jury to hear about how the
government couldn't break the encryption codes set up by just a private
investigator and his nerdy side-kick, Kevin Kachikian. Pretty sad
stuff.... As for what we did hear, Mr. Pellicano apologized. "Those
were never intended to be heard by anyone but Mr. Pellicano," he said
of the phone recordings seized from his office.

And then, there were his final comments to the jury--probably the most
entertaining final close that I've ever heard. "Mr. Pellicano refuses
to insult your intelligence," he said of himself. "Mr. Pellicano told
you that the evidence will show what the evidence shows and it clearly
does." And, that's a fact Jack.

As for who was responsible for this entire operation, Mr. Pellicano
took the last few moments to tell the jury--man to ladies and
gentlemen--that "Mr. Pellicano alone is responsible for the gathering
and acquisition of the information. That's the simple truth. Mr.
Pellicano alone is responsible." A final gift to Mr. Arneson, Mr.
Kachikian, Mr. Turner and Mr. Nicherie for having to sit through all of
Mr. Pellicano's rather unhelpful cross-examination and for ending up
charged with RICO along with him.

Finally, he had one last thought for the jury. "Mr. Pellicano had
instructed me not to stand up here and try to sway you and you know
that people do what Mr. Pellicano says," he argued, prompting the judge
to cover her face with her hand to conceal her laughter. ""So, I'm
going to do what Mr. Pellicano says." And with that, he thanked the
jury for their service and walked over to his chair with a big smile on
his face.

MORE TO COME ON TODAY

There was one thing that I forgot to put in my earlier post and that really summed up Mr. Saunders' closing argument yesterday. Before the defendants began to close today, Mr. Saunders took a moment to thank the judge for giving him extra time to finish his argument yesterday. "It wasn't as extra as it seemed," the judge replied with a smile, intimating that Mr. Saunders' final forty-five minutes of argument seemed to go on longer than it actually did.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: The Closing Arguments

2008-04-30T11:20:37Z

Prosecutor Daniel Saunders stepped up to the podium yesterday morning to finally give his closing argument in a case that started back in November, 2002. Mr. Saunders actually started off strong, going to the audio tape in order to give the jury a taste of Mr. Pellicano in action. The audio tape was a government favorite--the old Matt Williams tape where Mr. Pellicano tells Mr. Williams, a former baseball player, how he can help him get information on Mr. Williams' ex-wife. "I'm gonna listen to things that she's talking about," Mr. Pellicano says on the audio recording, prompting Mr. Williams to consider hiring a different investigator. (He never did, in fact, hire Mr. Pellicano.) And of course, Mr. Pellicano tells Mr. Williams that his methods have to stay just between Mr. Williams and Mr. Pellicano. I guess that's because besides most of entertainment industry and a couple of peripheral players, nobody knew that Mr. Pellicano had the ability to wiretap conversations.

But after playing the Williams' audio recording and going through a list of the government's greatest Pellicano witnesses during the eight week trial, Mr. Saunders began to run into trouble. His first mistake--using a quote from John Adams about how "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Clearly, someone has been watching too many episodes of the John Adams series on HBO. The whole "fact is a stubborn thing" kind of came off as stake, uninspired and just a little bit dull. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last time Mr. Saunders mentioned it wasn't exactly a crowd pleaser, Mr. Saunders went back to it every so often, reminding us that even incredibly intelligent people like John Adams can have an off day.

While the whole "fact is a stubborn thing" quote wasn't exactly Churchill, it wasn't as dull as what came next. Things truly began to go wrong for Mr. Saunders right around the time he promised the jury to go through every single charge in the 79 count indictment. You could almost feel their sense of dread--or maybe that was coming from the audience or perhaps, the judge. We all were aware of how long it was going to take to get through all those charges. All I could think was, thank God the government had cut down the original 110 count indictment or we'd all still be there in that courtroom right now, trying to find some comfortable position on those wooden benches that didn't leave us permanently paralyzed.

But some time between Mr. Saunders' walk down indictment memory lane and his criminal law for dummies class, the prosecutor did make some interesting points about the government's case. He laced into former Sgt. Arneson for helping Mr. Pellicano find information on some of the same criminals that were targeted by the former officer's employer, the LAPD. He argued that Mr. Arneson had let down the citizens of Los Angeles by abusing the powers of his position and that the former officer was nothing more than a dirty cop on Mr. Pellicano's payroll who put his co-workers at risk by providing the detective with privileged law enforcement information. And, he hit Mr. Pellicano and Mr. Turner very hard as he described how the two had worked together to wiretap the most private conversations of citizens who had no idea that anyone was listening. (I suppose that was because this all happened before the government got in the business of warrantless wiretaps.)

And then there were some interesting attempts to cut off defense arguments that are yet to come. Mr. Saunders admitted that because the F.B.I.'s first search warrant in November of 2002 was a limited search warrant that didn't allow the bureau to seize computers from Mr. Pellicano's war room, quite a bit of evidence was potentially missed and then subsequently destroyed by Mr. Pellicano. He also admitted that there were quite a few recordings of Mr. Pellicano's that the F.B.I. was unable to decrypt--which has to make you feel good about how they're dealing with the whole terrorist threat. And, there was his throw away line about how this was a conspiracy and how the government hadn't actually charged everyone who might have been involved (or basically financed) this whole wiretapping and illegal investigation business that Mr. Pellicano allegedly had going here in town for over thirty years.

"There's been a lot of questioning about who was or wasn't charged with what in this case," Mr. Saunders acknowledged in a booming voice. "It's your job to decide whether the government proved the charges. But, it's not your job to decide who should have been a defendant and not a witness." No, that was the government's job and frankly, I'm not so sure they did such a good job of it. They used an ex-employee named Tarita Virtue, who admitted to transcribing wiretapped calls and who could have been prosecuted by the government had she not struck a deal, to testify about over 300 calls that she listened to in the Bo Zenga matter. (There were also other significant problems with her credibility--including a whole lot of pictures of her in her underwear on the web after she was supposedly in hiding because of fears that Mr. Pellicano would harm her.) They had Ms. Virtue also testify to summaries she typed up of many of those calls--including private conversations between Mr. Zenga and his attorney, Mr. Dovel. But the government pointedly avoided asking Mr. Grey, who was the defendant in that lawsuit, about things he'd told the F.B.I., including the content of phone calls he'd had with Mr. Pellicano regarding the Bo Zenga matter. (He was also asked very few questions about the Gary Shandling lawsuit, despite his admission that he'd received advice not to settle the matter from Mr. Pellicano. Nor was he asked about Mr. Shandling's testimony that as far back as 1995, Mr. Grey suggested hiring Mr. Pellicano when Mr. Shandling was involved in litigation with his ex-girlfriend and employee, Linda Doucett.)

The government also decided not to call the most obvious witness of all, Mr. Grey's attorney, Bert Fields, who worked with Mr. Pellicano for years on a wide variety of cases and was named by a number of witnesses as the man who had suggested they hire Mr. Pellicano. Instead, the jury heard from the clients of Mr. Fields, some of whom actually testified to hearing wiretaps. There was Adam Sender who testified about listening to wiretaps but who wasn't indicted, and Susan Maguire, also not indicted, as well as Andrew Stevens, also not indicted. Oddly enough, the government also called Michael Ovitz, who although he took the stand and said he'd both hired Mr. Pellicano to dig up dirt on his opponents and paid him cash and checks for his efforts, is also not charged in this matter. (Of course, Mr. Ovitz denied being aware of any illegal activity by Mr. Pellicano.) In a strange contrast to how the government treated Mr. Ovitz during his direct testimony, Mr. Saunders actually pointed to Mr. Ovitz today in talking about Mr. Pellicano's misdeeds, telling the jury that "Michael Ovitz paid Defendant Pellicano to get information on Anita Busch to 'find out when the other shoe would drop.'"

Naturally, Mr. Saunders still didn't provide any explanation for the jury why Mr. Ovitz wasn't charged or any of the other clients who testified before the jury because, as he pointed out earlier in the day, it's not their job to question the charges in this case. And, Mr. Saunders is right about that. It was his job back when he first began to see the evidence in this case before all the statute of limitations had run against these potential defendants, to ask the difficult questions about who should be charges in this case and to made the very difficult choice about whether to go after some of the most powerful people in the Los Angeles community who retained Mr. Pellicano. Obviously, Mr. Saunders opted to go a different route. He chose to go after the private detective to the stars, rather than his clients, as well as this bottom rung of Mr. Pellicano's employees--this allegedly conspiracy consisting of a poorly paid, allegedly corrupt police officer (or two), a long time phone company worker (or three) and a freelance computer geek who barely left his home. Mr. Saunders is right. It isn't the job of the jury to be sitting around after the fact having to wonder about why they've seen a parade of Mr. Pellicano's incredibly wealthy clients--including entertainment executives and celebrities--walk in and out the courtroom even after admitting to having hired Mr. Pellicano or in some cases or even after admitting to listening to wiretaps. It's not their job to question why Andrew Stevens could go up on a roof, listen to one of Mr. Pellicano's wiretaps of entertainment attorney John LaViolette speaking to his client, laugh about it with the private detective and then just bounce on out of the courtroom a free man. It was Mr. Saunders job, if he chose to do so, to investigate fully and indict the incredibly wealthy people in this town who spent a fortune making Mr. Pellicano--and not his merry band of employees--an incredibly wealthy man and a warmly regarded member of their community.

Bottom line here is that only three people involved in the entertainment industry were charged in this case--despite the fact that almost all of Mr. Pellicano's clients were somehow related to the entertainment business. There were only really two industry insiders charged in this entire case and one entertainment attorney--director John McTiernan, because blatantly he lied to the F.B.I. and then refused to cooperate and music producer Bob Pfeiffer, because frankly, Mr. Pellicano recorded most of their conversations. And of course, Terry Christensen, the name partner at Christensen, Glaser, because again, the government actually got their hands on over thirty recordings by Mr. Pellicano of their conversations. (Given the potentially incriminating nature of those many recordings, you have to think that even Mr. Saunders couldn't help but indict Mr. Christensen.) But in general, it seems that if you were in the entertainment industry and you still were hot--always helpful in this particular town--it seems you got a pass in this case.

When he wasn't painfully explaining and re-explaining the elements of RICO or a conspiracy allegation or telling the jury what the government didn't have to prove, Mr. Saunders did manage to do some damage to former Sgt. Mark Arneson's defense. Noting that testimony by the former officer that Mr. Pellicano paid him and his company to provide security services to the detective's wealthy celebrity clients was really ludicrous in light of the fact that Mr. Arneson presented no evidence regarding these services. Mr. Saunders questioned why Mr. Arneson had introduced no business records regarding the alleged security work he did for Mr. Pellicano's clients or testimony from the off-duty cops Mr. Arneson allegedly paid to assist him with his off-duty business. "So where are all these cops who got paid?" Mr. Saunders asked. "I assume they're with his business records." Mr. Saunders' saracastic remarks regarding Mr. Arneson's lack of evidence of his innocence were followed by Mr. Saunders' well timed admission that "of course, Mr. Arneson doesn't have to prove anything and I'm not suggesting he does."

Mr. Saunders spent most of the day, however, slowly, ever so slowly, going through each and every count in the massive indictment and even at one point, reading from his notes to the jury the actual elements of a particular count. Unfortunately, Mr. Saunders fell into the trap getting lost in the computer runs, phone logs, and even the occasional dull recording instead of focusing on the human elements of the government's case. There was a lot of testimony during this trial about computer runs and phone numbers and all kinds of wiretapping, but with just a few exceptions, Mr. Pellicano's alleged victims kind of got lost in the shuffle.

Mr. Saunders' most effective effort to really bring out the stories of the alleged victims of this case was when he focused on the testimony by Bo Zenga's attorney, Mr. Dovel, who spoke about how "chilling" it was to see notes of your own private conversations. Mr. Saunders also reminded the jury about how Mr. Dovel had summed up the devastating effect of having a legal opponent know everything about your case. As Mr. Dovel said during his testimony, information is everything in litigation. Mr. Saunders effectively summed up the point, noting that thanks to Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping abilities, "his side knew everything that the other side did." But then again, that left open the question of why Mr. Pellicano's side," particularly as it pertained to the Bo Zenga litigation, wasn't sitting in court next to Mr. Pellicano.

Mr. Saunders big finish included, yep, a shout out to John Adams and his stubborn fact brigade as well as a reminder to the jury to not be fooled by the evil doings of the defense attorneys as they try to pick a part the government's case. Mr. Saunders told the jury that he expected the defense to try and argue about particular evidence --darn those stinkin' conspirators--and to basically disregard the totality of the evidence. Mr. Saunders closed by reminding the jury that what the attorneys say isn't evidence (particularly the defense attorneys) and that in considering what they hear today, they sould ask themselves whether what is said is consistent with the totality of the evidence. Yep, that's pretty much what he said and it was just as compelling of an admonition in person.

Mr. Hummel, Mr. Arneson's attorney, is up first for the defense tomorrow. Argument starts at 8:00 sharp. STAY TUNED FOR TODAY'S OTHER POSTS.....

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Closing Arguments Begin

2008-04-29T14:10:36Z

Prosecutor Daniel Saunders has begun his closing argument, starting off strongly with his statement that the Pellicano Investigative Agency was "nothing more than a criminal organization operated by a well connected, well paid thug." He then went on to give the jury a recitation of the number of witnesses and documents that the government has presented showing what happened to people that found themselves on the wrong side of the Pellicano agency. Mr. Saunders has been direct, strong and quite structured in his argument, seemingly quite compelling during the opening stages. However, he seemed to be dragged down by the sheer number of counts and the complexity of what these defendants are charged with doing. MORE LATER...

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Mistrial Denied

2008-04-28T13:04:32Z

Part 1:
At this time, the judge had denied without prejudice Mr. Hummel's motion on Mr. Arneson's behalf for a mistrial. After Phyllis Miller, the government's witness from last week, agreed to not take the fifth and continue to be cross-examined on whether she and her husband had forged Mr. Arneson's signature on a bankruptcy document, the judge decided that the trial would go forward. Despite Mr. Hummel's argument that Mr. Saunders' cross-examination of Mr. Arneson had been "a hatchet job" which was extremely prejudicial, the judge opted to go on with the trial. She did offer two remedies to Mr. Hummel which he is currently considering during this twenty minute break. She offered to strike all of the government's very damaging cross-examination of Mr. Arneson on the issue of whether he'd signed the bankruptcy petition. Mr. Arneson was cross-examined for over an hour by Mr. Saunders about his testimony that he'd never signed the bankruptcy petition. The judge also offered to keep in the record Ms. Miller's testimony that it was her husband's handwriting on the bankruptcy petition--effectively allowing testimony into the record demonstrating that Mr. Arneson had not been lying about never filing for bankruptcy. And, she offered to submit what's known as a curative instruction to the jury--telling them something that would help them not remember the hour of testimony where it looked like Mr. Arneson was a complete and total liar. Given the dramatic nature of Mr. Saunders' cross-examination of Mr. Arneson, she probably should have offered to inject the jury with some drug to help them forget that particular day of the trial since that's the only thing that's going to actually erase that particular testimony from their mind.

Mr. Hummel seemed distressed when he approached the podium to argue against the judge's tentative decision, saying that this was the third time that the government had improperly tried to impeach Mr. Arneson's credibility during this trial. He noted that the government had failed to properly investigate the bankruptcy matter and that despite that fact, Mr. Arneson had been subjected to relentless, ruthless and scathing cross-examination by Mr. Saunders. He argued that the cross-examination had left the jury with the indelible impression that Mr. Arneson could not be believed. And on that point, one would have to agree. The cross-examination of Mr. Arneson by Mr. Saunders lasted for over an hour and even included questions which accused Mr. Arneson of not telling the truth. (Basically, Mr. Saunders accused him of lying about not signing this document for over an hour. And, Mr. Arneson kept insisting that it wasn't his signature, despite what appeared to be evidence to the contrary.

He pointed to Mr. Saunder's statement in front of a juror in which he accused Mr. Arneson of perjury after Mr. Arneson refused to admit that it was his signature on the bankruptcy document. He also pointed to another incident in which the government had questioned Mr. Arneson about a statement he made during an internal affairs inquiry by the LAPD--such statements are not allowed to be used in court against a police officer. Mr. Hummel closed by noting that the all of the governments' conduct towards Mr. Arneson had been cumulatively prejudicial and that even after hearing Ms. Miller's testimony, the government is still insisting that they everything was done in good faith. (It does seem difficult to swallow the good faith argument given that Ms. Miller was clearly not investigated completely before the government put her on the stand. So, I guess the court is supposed to just excuse the government's conduct because they didn't purposely put on a witness who was untruthful. Hmm...have to think about that one.)

Mr. Hummel concluded before the break by suggesting that her honor should be concerned about how the investigation in this case was conducted. And given Ms. Millers' testimony, she probably should take a moment to think over the issue. The government conceded little in its argument, but agreed to strike portions of the cross-examination. However, even after everything that's occurred, Mr. Saunders pointed to the fact that Mr. Arneson's attorney could still cross this witness since she's not taking the fifth--as if that would be a sufficient remedy for the potential prejudice caused by his cross of Mr. Arneson on the bankruptcy issue.

Part 2:
After the break, Mr. Hummel returned with a laundry list of requests from the court in an effort to remedy the fact that Mr. Saunders had effectively made Mr. Arneson look like a liar during his cross-examination of the former officer. Mr. Hummel requested that the judge instruct the jury that Mr. Arneson had been telling the truth about not filing a bankruptcy petition. He also requested that the court advise the jury that the government's line of questioning regarding Mr. Arneson allegedly filing a fraudulent bankruptcy petition was wrong. Finally, Mr. Hummel requested that the court advise the jury that Ms. Miller has acknowledged that it was her husband, not Mr. Arneson, who signed the bankruptcy petition.

The judge denied all of Mr. Hummel's requests for an explanatory jury instruction and also denied without prejudice his motion for a mistrial. (That means, as the judge pointed out, that she could change her mind on the issue.) The judge then suggested that she would be offering two remedies to Mr. Arneson. She said that she'd strike the portion of Mr. Arneson's cross-examination on the issue of the fraudulent bankruptcy. But apparently, she's going to do so without any explanation to the jury which means that they will probably merely remember the sum and not the particulars of Mr. Arneson's disastrous cross-examination testimony. And, she's willing to strike Ms. Miller's direct testimony, but to allow Ms. Miller's cross-examination testimony that her husband signed the bankruptcy application and not Mr. Arneson.

So, even though Mr. Hummel doesn't get a mistrial for Mr. Arneson, he will get the opportunity during his closing statements to point out to the jury that Mr. Arneson's testimony that he never filed for bankruptcy remains unrebutted--as in there was no cross on the issue because everyone is supposed to forget the cross-examination on the issue because it turned out to be incorrect. (Well, he can't say that last part about the incorrect cross, but he'll definitely go with the part about the testimony remaining unrebutted.) Then, Mr. Hummel can also argue that Ms. Miller's testimony directed supported his client's claim on direct that he never filed for bankruptcy since she testified that her husband had signed the bankruptcy petition--specifically, she testified that it was her husband's handwriting. By the way, that same husband is busy serving an eleven year sentence for forgery and fraud.

As for the government, Mr. Saunders argued effectively that an instruction regarding the truthfulness of Mr. Arneson's testimony would be improper. The government also argued effectively that testimony by Mr. Arneson regarding his precarious financial condition unrelated to the bankruptcy filing would remain in the record.

There was one particularly odd thing about today's court proceedings was that the witness, Ms. Miller, who had told the court she'd take the fifth amendment on Friday, now decided to testify before the court. (Ms. Miller also had to switch lawyers as the federal public defender said that he couldn't defend her because his office was representing another witness in the trial. The office felt that it was a conflict, so the judge appointed another attorney to defend Ms. Miller.) Despite the advice of the federal public defender, the new attorney stated to the court that his client was now willing to testify and would not be invoking her fifth amendment rights. Mr. Hummel called for a brief meeting with the new lawyer--probably to point out the evidence that he had to impeach her credibility--but the lawyer returned to court and again said that his client was willing to testify. Mr. Hummel then inquired as to what type of investigation the government had conducted over the weekend, since he was aware that Mr. Arneson's ex-wife had been contacted by government agents. Mr. Lally said that the government did have some 302's regarding their investigation, but he'd inadvertently left them on his desk. He represented to the court that they would be turned over to Mr. Hummel by the end of the day. So, perhaps, one could speculate that there was something that came up in the government's last minute investigation that persuaded Ms. Miller that she'd be okay to go forward with her testimony. In any event, it seems that she won't be going back on the stand and that Mr. Hummel is going to try and rehabilitate his client's credibility during his closing argument.

Meanwhile, all the lawyers are continuing to meet to hammer out jury instructions. The judge has instructed the attorneys that they will be staying in court until the instructions are completed.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: A Possible Mistrial As Jury Sent Home

2008-04-25T13:56:36Z

**Update below**

Part 1:

Well folks, it seems that Mr. Saunders' day long grilling and attempted impeachment of former Sgt. Arneson has come back to haunt him. After introducing documents of a bankruptcy filing that Mr. Saunders claimed was signed and filed by Mr. Arneson and that Mr. Arneson strenuously and repeatedly denied filing, the government today brought back a witness, Phyllis Miller, who was alleged aware of Mr. Arneson's bankruptcy filing. After she finished testifying to trying to arrange a refinance of Mr. Arneson's home and to being aware of his bankruptcy filing, Mr. Arneson's attorney, Chad Hummel, introduced evidence that Ms. Miller had fraudulently filed a bankruptcy filing on Mr. Arneson's behalf. The judge called an immediate sidebar and then returned to the bench and advised Ms. Miller that she needed to either speak with a court appointed federal defender before continuing with her testimony or hire an attorney. After Ms. Miller was sent out of the court room to wait for a court appointed attorney, Mr. Hummel noted that Ms. Miller and her husband had attempted to defraud Mr. Arneson of his property and that this so-called bankruptcy was clearly their work and was filed without Mr. Arneson's knowledge--as he'd testified under oath. Mr. Hummel noted that Mr. Saunders created this problem himself by so vehemently pursuing this issue and now, he's left with the consequences. Mr.Hummel said that serious damage was done by the government to his client's credibility on this issue and he needed to ask this witness questions to repair it. The judge replied that "I don't disagree, I just need to make sure that this witness is advised of her fifth amendment rights before continuing."

Right now, we're looking at a possible mistrial and waiting for the witness to speak with her attorney. The judge has ordered her not to leave this floor or to speak with the government attorneys or F.B.I. agents. Yes folks, it's a bombshell and it comes just as the government was ready to call some of its last rebuttal witnesses..... STAY TUNED.

UPDATE -- Part 2:
It's a crazy day here at the Pellicano trial. Just yesterday, we were heading for closing arguments to begin on Monday. But today, following testimony by a prosecution witness called to further impeach Sgt. Mark Arneson's credibility, the jury had been sent home early for the day and told not to return until Monday. After the jury left the room, Mr. Hummel addressed the judge regarding the current possibility of a mistrial. The judge told the lawyers that she hoped they didn't have any plans for the weekend because they would have to file briefs with her regarding the testimony of a Phyllis Miller, a witness called by the government to further impeach Officer Arneson. After her testimony on direct examination by Mr. Saunders, Ms. Miller was asked on cross examination by Mr. Hummel about whether it was her husband's handwriting on the bankruptcy petition allegedly filed by Mr. Arneson. Within just minutes, it became clear that Ms. Miller had admitted to being involved in some manner in preparing a fraudulent bankruptcy application on Mr. Arneson's behalf. The judge called in a court appointed attorney for Ms. Miller who quickly advised her to not testify any further.

With the jury no longer present, the judge advised Ms. Miller's attorney that his client is ordered to be present in court on Monday morning by 8:00 and if she is not present, it will be considered a crime. The judge then publicly asked Mr. Hummel about whether he'll file something by Monday. "Your Honor," Mr. Hummel said pleasantly, "we find ourselves in a novel situation. We'll do our best." The judge nodded, seemingly agreeing that the situation was indeed novel and somewhat dire considering the government had just called a witness who was probably now subject to criminal prosecution for fraudulent bankruptcy filings and potentially for perjury. Mr. Hummel made a formal motion for a mistrial on Mr. Arenson's behalf and then said "it is the only remedy."

Mr. Saunders was silent.

The judge replied, "The remedy is more than striking the direct testimony. Whether it's a mistrial, I don't know." The court then took a fifteen minute break, ordering the lawyers to return to court after the break to discuss potential jury instructions.

As soon as the lawyers left the courtroom, they broke off into their separate groups--with the defense lawyers looking happy and Mr. Saunders rushing down the hallway with his cell phone in hand.

UPDATE -- Part 3:

Back in the courtroom with the spector of a mistrial hanging over the trial, the judge still struggled to go ahead with revising final jury instructions. She actually joked with Mr. Hummel about the day's events, saying "Monday, we're giving instructions and you [Mr. Hummel] may or may not be here."

The judge briefly entertained a couple of possibilities regarding whether there was any way Ms. Miller, who is now facing possible fraud charges, could possibly testify on Monday under certain conditions. But immediately following some conversation about what might happen with Ms. Miller, the judge admitted that she wasn't sure what was going to happen on Monday and that she wasn't committing to any of the proposed cures until she'd read briefs from both sides. "A mistrial is obviously a possibility," the judge said. "I don't know how great a possibility." And although she made clear that she'd wait for both the defense and the prosecution to brief the issue, she was considering having a witness actually tell the jury that the signature on Mr. Arneson's bankruptcy petition was, in fact, forged and that "Mr. Arneson was telling the truth." That sentence must have been particularly satisfying to former Sgt. Arneson who only a few days ago, had repeatedly insisted under particularly harsh cross-examination by Mr. Saunders, that he was telling the truth and that he'd never filed for bankruptcy.

Mr. Saunders, who was uncharacteristically quiet during much of the discussion, finally stood up and suggested that the judge should consider looking at giving an instruction to the jury that they should disregard any testimony given regarding the bankruptcy issue. The judge pretty much dismissed the idea, noting that while she'd told the jury to disregard a lot of things during this trial, she couldn't really go that route with this issue. "This one is a pretty big," she said pointedly.

Mr. Saunders then made sure to let the court know that while he appreciated the situation in which the government now found itself--that is facing a possible mistrial after years of preparation--he wanted the court to know that the government didn't foresee this particular situation. Basically, he didn't foresee that this witness, who was interviewed by the F.B.I., would turn out to be a possible criminal and that her husband, was currently in jail for doing to a whole lot of people what he'd tried to do to Mr. Arneson.

The entirety of the situation wasn't lost on the judge. "Clearly Mr. Hummel did a better investigation," the judge noted, pointing out something that had become painfully obvious to both Mr. Saunders and Mr. Lally.

"Thank you, your Honor," Mr. Hummel said politely. He then went on to explain his position regarding a potential instruction to the jury to try and fix the fact that the government had probably already convinced the jury that Mr. Arneson had repeatedly lied about signing the bankruptcy application. In fact, it was right after Mr. Saunders aggressive cross-examination of Mr. Arneson on the whole bankruptcy issue that Mr. Saunders actually threatened to have Mr. Arneson's bail revoked and have him thrown back in jail on perjury charges. (That was the time when the juror heard Mr. Saunders say the word perjury and she had to represent to the judge that she could disregard having heard that word....)

Mr. Hummel finally told the court that while he was ready to brief the issue for Monday's hearing, he still wanted it on the record that for the last five years, "we've heard threat after threat on this issue [from the government]. For the record, I have to hit the books, but I don't see any instruction that will remedy this situation," said Mr. Hummel. "This is clearly the result of an inadequate investigation by the federal government."

And so, on Monday, the court noted that the witness will return and she will consider whether to declare a mistrial. It's really incredible that after six years of investigation, the government managed to call a witness to impeach a defendant's testimony without checking that witness' criminal history. Mr. Hummel has said repeatedly that his client denied having filed a fraudulent bankruptcy application. He said it five years ago when Mr. Arneson first spoke with the government and he said it before Mr. Saunders proceeded to seriously delve into the issue on cross-examination in his effort to prove to the jury that Mr. Arneson was a liar. And, despite all the times that Mr. Arneson insisted that the signature on the document was forged, the government refused to investigate his claims. Frankly, it makes one wonder what else they forgot or didn't bother to investigate.

Is it possible that there is all kinds of other evidence that the government overlooked in their desire to prosecute these few, rather insignificant Pellicano associates who were so down on the ladder that they scored truly pathetic financial benefits from their alleged criminal activity? Is it possible that in questioning Mr. Pellicano's clients, the government didn't bother to really ask them really hard questions because the government was focused on charging this truly bottom rung of Pellicano associates and not any of Mr. Pellicano's powerful and influential clients? And given what's happened with this prosecution, can you blame them? Did the government really even want to charge Mr. Pellicano's wealthy clients given their deep pockets and endless resources? Did they go after people like Mr. Arneson and Mr. Kachikian and even Mr. Turner because it was easier? And if so, can you even imagine what's going to happen in the courtroom when Mr. Saunders and Mr. Lally finally prosecute Mr. Christensen and they face off against a defendant with not only deep pockets, but an arsenal of attorneys ready and able to research any legal issue at a moment's notice? Even with over thirty tapes of Mr. Christensen chatting away with Mr. Pellicano about wiretapping Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, you've still got to wonder how that one is going to play out given what happened today.

Read more coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: A Computer Expert and a Government Witness Bashed

2008-04-24T13:49:18Z

Computer Expert Kevin Kachikian was back on the stand this morning and having a bit of difficulty briefly answering Mr. Braun's questions. After a number of snarky objections from Mr. Saunders, who definitely looks like he could stand a good night's sleep and a little sun, the judge repeatedly instructed Mr. Kachikian to merely answer his attorney's questions with a "yes" or "no.' Mr. Kachikian, who continues to seem like a likable loyal nerd, testified today about how he tried to honestly answer all the government's questions. He told the court that he met with the government on at least four occasions and testified before the grand jury about his role in working on telesleuth. Apparently unaware that in most television shows law enforcement always gets their man by urging him that he doesn't need a lawyer if he has nothing to hide, Mr. Kachikian decided to speak to the government repeatedly without the benefit of counsel. In dialogue that could have come right out of a Law and Order episode, Mr. Kachikian proudly announced, "I didn't bring a lawyer to any interview because I had nothing to hide." Needless to say, the interviews didn't go that well since Mr. Kachikian is now sitting on the witness stand, nervously trying to explain that when he worked on Telesleuth, he was completely unaware that Mr. Pellicano would be using the device for illegal purposes. When asked if he felt badly about having worked on Telesleuth, Mr. Kachikian took a moment to ponder the issue. "That's a tough question to answer," he replied, seemingly perplexed by the situation in which he found himself. "I like the technology of Telesleuth, but I don't like how it was apparently used and I feel saddened that it was apparently used this way."

He also went after the government's witness, Tarita Virute. As you probably don't recall at this point, Ms. Virtue was a one-woman Pellicano-bashing machine when she took the stand for the government earlier in the trial. She identified all of the defendants as basically hanging at Mr. Pellicano's office and recalled Mr. Turner walking with telephone numbers and Mr. Arneson leaving with stuffed envelopes. And then, there was Ms. Virtue's tear stained account of a threatening call made by Mr. Pellicano to her father--a call that a defense witness later described as polite and non-threatening. Today we learned from Mr. Kachikian that Ms. Virtue was known as the office Jezebel following Mr. Pellicano's arrest on weapons possession charges--before this current arrest on wiretapping and conspiracy. Referring to an email that he'd received from Ms. Virtue after Mr. Pellicano's arrest on weapons possession charges, Mr. Kachikian revealed that he felt Ms. Virtue seemed flippant and proud about Mr. Pellicano's arrest. "There was talk around the office that she was the one who turned in Mr. Pellicano," Mr. Kachikian said. "I wasn't very happy with it. I let her know what I'd been hearing around the office."

As for whether Mr. Kachikian purposely destroyed Telesleuth codes and materials following Mr. Pellicano's arrest, the computer technician said that he merely followed the same procedures he always followed with clients. Telling the jury that the Telesleuth materials did not belong to him, he explained that when Mr. Pellicano requested them back following the detective's arrest, Mr. Kachikian did not hesitate to return all of the materials. He also put his copy of the materials in the trash of his computer and then used a program to delete all of the trash. (He used much more sophisticated terminology, but the bottom line was that after he trashed the Telesleuth materials, there was no way for anyone to recover them.) He explained to the jury that he'd done a similar thing when he'd gone on sabbatical back around the millennium. Whenever he stopped doing work for a client, he returned all materials and then destroyed his copy of those materials. He did that back in 2000 when he briefly stopped working for Mr. Pellicano and apparently, he did the same thing in 2003, following Mr. Pellicano's arrest.

STILL TO COME, CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SAUNDERS WHO SEEMS TO BE IN A PARTICULARLY BAD MOOD TODAY. In fact, Mr. Saunders' attitude was so abrupt and snarky during his objections to Mr. Braun's questions, that Mr. Braun asked the judge to please tell Mr. Saunders to change the tone of his objections.

Part 2:
In a great moment in this trial, nerdy computer guy Kevin Kachikian has done a great job of besting Mr. Saunders during what was expected to a relatively easy cross. Despite the judge's constant admonishment to answer the questions posed by Mr. Saunders, Mr. Kachikian, in his own geeky way, has managed to point out to the jury that Mr. Saunders is cherry picking paragraphs from his grand jury testimony in an attempt to make his testimony here in court look inconsistent with his prior statements. Mr. Saunders has attempted on several occasions to read a paragraph from Mr. Kachikian's grand jury testimony and had Mr. Kachikian refer him to additional testimony which was consistent with Mr. Kachikian's testimony here in court. In response, Mr. Saunders has gotten louder and louder, telling the witness that he doesn't want to have an argument and then proceeding to do precisely just that. Meanwhile, Mr. Kachikian has gotten into dangerous territory with the judge, adding various disclaimers and comments after every single one of his answers which just happen to explain the alleged inconsistencies in his testimony. At one point, Mr. Kachikian even agreed with Mr. Saunders' reading of the grand jury testimony, noting "that's what I said. Now, could you please put it in context." And then, at another point, after Mr. Saunders read testimony in which Mr. Kachikian allegedly admitted to not remembering whether Mr. Pellicano asked him to destroy certain Telesleuth documents, Mr. Kachikian directed Mr. Saunders to read from another portion of the grand jury testimony where he did remember what Mr. Pellicano had directed him to do. So far, if Mr. Kachikian ends up avoiding sanctions, the computer nerd had bested the seasoned prosecutor. But the day is still young.... and the judge is still angry.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Anthony Won't Testify In His Own Defense

2008-04-23T19:56:15Z

The day ended with some of the biggest news of the trial, Anthony Pellicano will not testify in his own defense. After what was one of the most tortuous days of the trial with the seemingly endless testimony of defendant Kevin Kachikian, Mr. Pellicano finally livened things up after the jury was excused for the day. As the judge sought to question Mr. Pellicano about whether he'd decided to testify, Mr. Pellicano began what was clearly a prepared speech, carefully announcing that his intention is not to have Mr. Pellicano testify to anything that Mr. Pellicano's clients said. As the judge struggled not to laugh at his repeated use of Mr. Pellicano, Mr. Pellicano attempted to continue his carefully prepared soliloquy, admonishing the judge with a surly "May I finish?" It seems at this point that Mr. Pellicano the lawyer has decided that he doesn't care what happens to Mr. Pellicano the client. Rather, he seemed just incredibly committed to getting a bunch of self-serving, incredibly ironic statements on the record. He calmly asked the judge whether if he were to allow Mr. Pellicano to testify, Mr. Pellicano could limit his testimony to merely those acts committed by Mr. Pellicano. When the judge seemed confused not only by his use of multiple Mr. Pellicano references, but also by his question, he condescendingly asked, "May I be helpful?" Ah, at last, the real Mr. Pellicano surfaces. As the judge looked on with almost stunned amusement, Mr. Pellicano explained his client's position. "Mr. Pellicano's intention would be to describe what he did and that's that." Mr. Pellicano's client would refuse to answer any questions about his clients because of the attorney-client and the newly invented Pellicano investigator-client privilege and he also will not answer any questions about his co-defendants. And, apparently, that's that. He looked over at the other defendants and the press still in the courtroom as if he'd finally explained his position to everyone.

The judge explained that Mr. Pellicano was free to advise his client as he saw fit, but as with the other defendants, she was willing to offer a bit of guidance as to what types of questions she'd allow on cross-examination even if Mr. Pellicano "the defendant" chose to confine his testimony to describe what he did and so on and so forth and to refrain from discussing anything about his co-defendants or his clients. "See the problem I'm having," said Mr. Pellicano, his attention directed towards all the apparently unhelpful defense attorneys in the room, is that "I've had difficulty trying to get someone to tell me what I can and can not do. I got six different opinions." (Now, that's shocking. He got six different opinions from six different lawyers. How unusual. Attorneys are usually so quick to reach a consensus on these types of things--especially ones representing defendants who will so clearly be hosed if Mr. Pellicano opens up his mouth about anything.)

"The thing is, I don't want to cause a mistrial and I don't want to put myself in a position where I hamper my co-defendants' defense," Mr. Pellicano continued, his voice filled with sincerity and sudden respect for his co-defendants in the room, most of whom he'd tape recorded without their consent.

One would figure that neither former Sgt. Arneson or former telephone company worker Ray Turner found Mr. Pellicano's sudden concern about their welfare terribly convincing.

After being informed by the judge that it was likely that any of his testimony would open the door to questions about credibility and his clients and his co-defendants--although she was careful to note that she wasn't giving any legal advice to him--Mr. Pellicano had a bit more to say. "If there is a chance that my testimony can be used by the prosecution to open any doors to my clients, it's not going to happen." Despite the fact that no one in the room seemed to be urging Mr. Pellicano to reconsider his decision, he still felt the need to continue as he was clearly enjoying his moment in the spotlight. It was obvious during the trial that he'd enjoyed making Anita Busch cry and had a bit of fun cross-examining government computer experts, but today, he seemed to finally be his old, swaggering self, making proclamations about what he would and wouldn't do. "I'll go through the different allegations against me," he said as if trying to be cooperative, "my intention is not to have my client testify to anything his clients said." Got it.

The judge again made sure to protect the record, politely asking Mr. Saunders to respond to Mr. Pellicano's comments and asking the prosecutor what sorts of questions he would ask defendant Mr. Pellicano on cross-examination. Looking as if he wanted to reach over at rip Mr. Pellicano tiny chinless head off his increasingly skinny body, Mr. Saunders finally got a chance to try and bait Mr. Pellicano into actually taking the one step that would finally help Mr. Saunders make a real case for conspiracy that included not only Mr. Pellicano and his merry band of small time crooks, but also some of the big guys in town who paid Pellicano to do all that illegal wiretapping. "I intend to question Mr. Pellicano with respect to his clients and his co-defendants," Mr. Saunders replied as popped aggressively out of his chair. "I intend to question him about all the underlying facts regarding his conduct, what he was retained for, who he was retained by and what he did with the information that he ultimately gathered." And, Mr. Saunders added coldly, he'd also be asking questions related to Mr. Pellicano's credibility. As for the issue of privilege, Mr. Saunders couldn't let that rest either, noting that most of Mr. Pellicano's clients in this case had waived their attorney-client privilege (translation--sold Mr. Pellicano down the river), so Mr. Pellicano shouldn't worry about that issue if he decides to testify, it'll be open season on everything that Mr. Pellicano's clients told him. "Let's take the Bo Zenga matter, for example," Mr. Saunders said, his speech becoming more and more clipped and restrained. "Mr. Grey waived his privilege when he testified about retaining Mr. Pellicano and all the work that Mr. Pellicano did for Mr. Grey would be appropriate matter for cross-examination as would Mr. Pellicano's conversations with both Mr. Grey and Mr. Fields." Now, that would be a trial worth watching.... and that might be a trial where some of the powerful people in this town were actually held accountable for what they did to their legal and personal adversaries.

By the time Mr. Saunders finished talking about his dream cross-examination of Mr. Pellicano, the prosecutor was virtually salivating at the thought. The rim of saliva around Mr. Saunders' lips wasn't lost on Mr. Pellicano. "Mr. Pellicano is not going to testify," he solemnly announced to the judge, again seemingly waiting for someone to convince him otherwise. But, not surprisingly, his co-defendants remained silent, choosing to do their dance of joy at a later time.

After the judge again told Mr. Pellicano that it was not her intention to convince him not to testify and Mr. Braun suggested a method by which Mr. Pellicano still might be able to take the stand, Mr. Pellicano coldly dismissed them both.

In a preview of what will probably be part of his closing argument, the man who is accused of causing irreparable harm to so many people, took the moment to give a speech about honor. "My honor and my way of thinking may be different than the prosecutors, Mr. Braun and your honor," Mr. Pellicano said, completely oblivious to the fact that most people wouldn't consider "blackening up people," "blowing up cars," or "wiretapping folks" to be within the attributes of a man obsessed with honor. But alas, this is a man who is obsessed with honor when it comes to certain people--certain rich people who paid him money and who he apparently believed to be his friends. Those people--none of whom have been in the court except to testify against him--are the people that Mr. Pellicano is willing to protect--even if he has to go to prison. As for the other co-defendants, yeah, he's concerned about them too--except for the ones he recorded or the ones he failed to exonerate. But, putting all that aside, this is a man of honor--at least that's what he thinks. "I'm not going to discuss my clients. There are things that the jury should hear, but I'm only concerned with how it affects my co-defendants and my clients if I testify. If there is a hair of a chance that your honor will compel me to answer questions about my clients or my co-defendant, then I can not testify."

"I will allow you to testify," the judge said again, making sure to protect the record of the trial. "I can not promise you that when the government asks to a certain a question, you will not be compelled to answer it." Mr. Pellicano nodded. "I won't put you in that position, your honor," he answered politely. "I'm going to walk in like a man and walk out like a man whether the prosecution respects it or not." And with that, he asked the court's permission to leave the courtroom where he presumably walked back to the jail like a man who wasn't going to testify in his own behalf because he couldn't control the process.

And so the day ended with the promise of more dull testimony from resident computer geek and co-defendant Kevin Kachikian, who no doubt will on the stand talking about something tomorrow that somehow relates to Telesleuth and why the heck he's a defendant in this trial. We're coming close to the end with closing arguments probably about to happen early next week.... STAY TUNED.... IT'S POSSIBLE THAT EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE SELF-PROCLAIMED HONORABLE DEFENDANT WILL BE BACK IN COURT TOMORROW WITH MORE THOUGHTS ON WHY NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO CROSS-EXAMINE HIM AFTER HE TESTIFIES. AND THAT, IS THAT.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Telesleuth In Depth

2008-04-23T16:25:04Z

Part 1:
Here at the Pellicano trial, things have livened up with defendant and resident computer geek Kevin Kachikian taking the stand to talk about his days working on the telesleuth program with former boss, Anthony Pellicano. Mr. Kachikian, sporting a friendly, youthful looking non-descript v-neck sweater, white shirt and his signature birkenstocks and socks, looks like the computer nerd who tends to avoid both eye contact and polite conversation with the rest of the office. Sitting up on the stand, Mr. Kachikian admitted that he was nervous and that he's never been particularly social and that he's an introverted person. It wasn't something that really needed saying after he spoke about a childhood that included building a replica robot of Star War's R2D2. And the, unlike other kids growing up in Orange County, Mr. Kachikian focused on working on the rides at Disneyland rather than on actually going on the rides at Disneyland. Yep, Mr. Kachikian was your typical kid growing up in the O.C., except for the part about going to the beach and hooking up with chicks. Based on his testimony, Mr. Kachikian was the kind of O.C. guy who preferred to spend his teenage years figuring out the programming and software design for the new apple computers. The computer wiz testified that he hooked up with Mr. Pellicano because the private detective expressed a desire to market his telesleuth program to law enforcement. Adam Braun, Mr. Kachikian's attorney, told the Judge at the break that he expects that his client will be on the stand for most of the day.

Part 2:
So, it's been three hours straight of listening to defendant and computer technology expert Kevin Kachikian explaining the inner workings of Telesleuth. At first, Mr. Kachikian came across as somewhat engaging, friendly and charmingly nerdy as he explained that he'd gone to work for Mr. Pellicano to help him develop computer software for the use of law enforcement. But three hours later, it seems as if his charm has worn off and his sweater ensemble that first made him seem approachable, now reminds me of the ensembles worn by the Mendendez brothers. And, while his attorney, Adam Braun, has done a nice job of bringing out Mr. Kachikian human, albeit nerdy side, everyone has definitely heard enough about how the telesleuth program works, how Mr. Kachikian helped Mr. Pellicano and how Mr. Kachikian didn't come up with any of the concepts for telesleuth--it was all Mr. Pellicano's idea.

We're on a break right now and will be returning to watch a video of telesleuth in action through the use of a clip from the Rock Hudson and Doris Day classic film, Pillow Talk. It's a welcome relief from the constant droning of Mr. Braun's voice and his empty promises to be "brief" and "direct." At this point, whenever Mr. Braun uses phrases in his questions to Mr. Kachikian like "just briefly" or "very quickly" or "briefly refer," we all know that we're in for some of the longest monologues that we've heard in this trial. (Warning...if you invite Mr. Braun over for dinner and he starts out a story with "very briefly," if you care at all about your guests, tell them to flee.) Mr. Kachikian seems to think that class is in session and it's his job to explain to us how he installed features in Telesleuth that would only be useful to law enforcement. And, as Mr. Braun has gotten Mr. Kachikian to point out more times than most human beings could stand, if Mr. Pellicano had wanted just your average wiretapping crappy device, he could have picked one up at radio shack.

Frankly, Mr. Kachikian has been a truly amiable witness, who seems more like a confusing computer/science teacher than a wiretapping and conspiracy defendant. But, we must all remember that this is merely direct examination and sometime in this century, Mr. Saunders will get a chance to cross him---if Mr. Saunders is still awake by then. At this point, it seems as if Mr. Saunders just let Mr. Braun introduce something into evidence because he's been bored into a stupor and his ability to object has been impaired. Right now, Mr. Saunders is sucking down a cup of coffee, so perhaps, he will resume his constant objections after the break--and hopefully after we get to see the movie clip. We've definitely earned it. If the judge wasn't resting her cheek on her hand all the time, I'm sure her head would come crashing down on the bench. She's definitely mastered the art of sleeping with her eyes open. Wish I knew how.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Greenberg, Glusker and Brad Grey's Work

2008-04-22T22:13:10Z

Ms. Soo Hoo took a much needed break from her defense of Mr. Turner and turned the defense over to Adam Braun, the attorney for computer wiz Kevin Kachikian. Mr. Braun called Ricardo Preston Cestero, who began as a worker in Mr. Pellicano's audio lab in July 1995 and then worked for him part-time while attending UCLA law school. As Mr. Cestero told the jury, after law school--and this is probably going to come as a shock--he managed to land a job with none other than the firm of Greenberg Glusker. As Mr. Cestero told the F.B.I. in his interview in September 16, 2003, while he listed Mr. Pellicano on his resume, "he had requested that Mr. Pellicano refrain from making any calls on his behalf to Greenberg Glusker." He wanted to get this job all on his own.....admirable, but not entirely believable since Mr. Pellicano was on his resume and Mr. Cestero was aware of his relationship with many of the Greenberg partners. (Nevertheless, Mr. Cestero's desire to make it all on his own appears in the notes taken by Agent Stan Ornellas and R.T. Ballard during their first interview with Mr. Cestero.)

During his testimony Tuesday, Mr. Cestero was asked very little about his employment with Greenberg Glusker by either Mr. Braun or Mr. Saunders. Lucky break for the Pellicano employee turned Greenberg attorney. Apparently, the judge purposely limited the scope of Mr. Braun's questions--guess she didn't want to hear all about what Mr. Cestero told the F.B.I about working at Greenberg Glusker. I'm sure the judge's decision had to delight Greenberg Glusker attorney Brian Sun, as well as his associate Katherine E. Hertel, who were both intently watching the proceedings along with Mr. Cestero's personal attorney. (It must be a comfort for Mr. Cestero's to know that his rights are being protected by the same lawyer that Bert Fields hired to represent him.)

Mr. Cestero merely testified that while working for Mr. Pellicano, he was responsible for the analyzing and enhancing of audio tapes utilizing Forensic Audio Sleuth. Mr. Cestero also said that he assisted in the testing of the software, noting there were fixes and bugs and problems with the software. He told the jury that he helped Mr. Pellicano prepare marketing materials regarding Forensic Audio Sleuth entitled "The State of the Art in Audio Tape Analysis." The brochure also included a photo of a relatively stern, relatively young looking Mr. Pellicano in front of a computer. Mr. Cestero testified that he was involved in mailing the brochure to a number of law enforcement agencies. When asked to describe what he understood Telesleuth to be, Mr. Cestero was guarded and quite erudite in his response. "Telesleuth was able to record a call from pick-up to hang-up," he answered, without any elaboration. When pressed by Mr. Braun, he added, "It was designed to specifically replace reel to reel technology." Mr. Cestero also admitted to putting together computer boxes for Telesleuth, selling fifty of those boxes and assisting Mr. Pelllicano in Telesleuth presentations to law enforcement--including the Ventura County Sheriff's department as well the Orange County District Attorney's office. But when Mr. Braun asked if Mr. Cestero ever became aware of any wiretapping by Mr. Pellicano, the answer was an unequivocal "no."

Mr. Saunders quickly established that Mr. Cestero had gone to work for Greenberg Glusker and Mr. Fields after working for Mr. Pellicano. But then Mr. Saunders let Mr. Cestero point out that after he left Mr. Pellicano's office in 1996, he never had anything to do with Telesleuth again. "So, you had no idea what Defendant Kachikian or Defendant Pellicano did with Telesleuth from the time you left?" Mr. Saunders asked, doing a great job of distancing Greenberg Glusker and Mr. Cestero from any of Mr. Pellicano's alleged wiretapping. "That's right," Mr. Cestero answered.

And now, let's take a walk down memory lane to when Mr. Cestero chatted with the F.B.I. about this very same program and let's review what Mr. Braun wasn't allowed to ask and what Mr. Saunders clearly didn't want to explore. During his first interview with the F.B.I., which was written up in notes by Agent Ornellas, Mr. Cestero was asked if Pellicano had engaged in recording personal telephone conversations with clients. Mr. Cestero replied, according to the F.B.I. notes, that Pellicano "would come into the lab once a week or every two weeks to record a conversation." As a general matter, Mr. Cestero admitted, in the presence of his lawyer, that Mr. Pellicano should have told the other party that he was recording the conversation but Mr. Cestero does not know if Pellicano was that forthcoming. (And, by this time, since he'd graduated from law school and passed the bar, one would have to assume that Mr. Cestero was aware that recording a conversation in California without informing the other party is against the law.)

Mr. Cestero didn't have a chance during court Tuesday to mention that he was interviewed for his job at Greenberg Glusker by Jill Cossman, who ironically testified in court right after him. (Ms. Cossman prepared a trademark application for Telesleuth on Mr. Pellicano's behalf.) Also not asked about in Mr. Cestero's testimony, but still interesting in terms of the Pellicano/Greenberg Glusker relationship, was Mr. Cestero's awareness of the attorneys who often worked with Mr. Pellicano. According to what Mr. Cestero told the F.B.I., those attorneys Pellicano had worked with at Greenberg Glusker included Jim Hornstein and Bert Fields, among the most prominent in the entertainment field. "Cestero added that Fields was normally involved in high profile cases which would normally require the services of Pelllicano."

After Mr. Cestero got to Greenberg Glusker, he told the F.B.I., he recalled that Fields along with attorneys Chuck Shepard and David Moriarty and Aaron Moss, who represented Brad Grey in the Bo Zenga litigation, hired Pellicano. Apparently, Mr. Cestero was unable to hire Mr. Pellicano on behalf of his clients because Mr. Pellicano charged too much. "It was $25,000 or nothing," Mr. Cestero told the F.B.I., according to Mr. Ornellas' notes. Finally, in that September interview, Mr. Cestero told the F.B.I. that he was unaware of Pellicano's involvement in wiretapping, positing that "wiretapping information is useless" because it's inadmissible. Clearly, as the jury has heard, that wasn't the case with Susan Maguire, Suzan Hughes, Alec Gores, Adam Sender, Freddie DeMann, Brad Grey and a host of other Pellicano clients.

All of these clients have denied initially being aware of Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping skills--including Mr. Grey. However, even after learning that Mr. Pellicano was wiretapping their adversaries, Ms. Hughes, Ms. Maguire, Mr. Sender and Mr. DeMann did not tell him to stop or report his conduct to authorities. As for Mr. Grey, despite evidence that Mr. Zenga and his attorney were wiretapped in Mr. Grey's litigation against them and some eivdence that Mr. Shandling and many associates were also wiretapped, Mr. Grey has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping. (He also initially denied having a close relationship with Mr. Pellicano or asking to hire him in either of those two lawsuits). There is some evidence to suggest that he knew Mr. Pellicano prior to the date he gave the F.B.I. given testimony by Ms. Linda Doucett and Mr. Gary Shandling and evidence that arguably shows that wiretapping of Mr. Zenga began after Mr. Grey's deposition went poorly -- and there is arguably evidence to suggest that Mr. Grey's attorneys used wiretapped information in their case against Mr. Zenga. However, at all times, Mr. Grey has maintained no knowledge of any of Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping and said that all visits to Mr. Pellicano's office were made in conjunction with a television show that Mr. Grey was selling with Mr. Pellicano.

During his second interview with the F.B.I., Mr. Cestero was a bit more explicit about the Telesleuth program, explaining that it was his understanding that "Pellicano had developed the Telesleuth software for the purpose of selling the program to law enforcement." Mr. Cestero admitted to the F.B.I. that it was his understanding, way back in 1995, that the Telesleuth program could be used for wiretapping and consensual monitoring. And he elaborated that Mr. Pellicano used the program to record his own conversations. According to F.B.I. notes, Mr. Cestero maintained "that Pellicano would instruct him every other week to switch the Telesleuth program from his private line to the main incoming line" in order to allow Pellicano to record the conversation on the line.

So, despite the fact that Mr. Cestero was a Pellicano employee with a great working knowledge of Telesleuth, and despite the fact that he later accepted a job at Greenberg Glusker after being interviewed by the same attorney who later handled the trademark application for Telesleuth, and that he told the F.B.I. that he was also aware of Mr. Pellicano's work on behalf of Mr. Fields in a number of high profile cases (although he personally was never involved), Mr. Cestero was only on the stand to testify about the 1995 version of Telesleuth. No need to go into that stuff about what happened when he was at Greenberg Glusker when he was aware that Mr. Pellicano was working for some of the top lawyers there. The main thing is that Mr. Cestero never hired Mr. Pellicano and that after he left Mr. Pellicano's employment, he never spoke to him again about Telesleuth or wiretapping or anything. Oh wait. Nobody asked him about that.

Next up on the Greenberg Glusker roster, Jill Cossman, the attorney given the task of obtaining a trademark for Mr. Pellicano's Telesleuth. Now, that means that while name partner Bert Fields was busy not knowing anything about Mr. Pellicano's wiretapping activities or capacity for wiretapping, another partner at his firm, Jill Cossman, was busy helping him trademark the Telesleuth device. (Mr. Fields has not been charged in this matter and has maintained that he knew nothing about Mr. Pellicano's illegal wiretapping.) Adam Braun posed the operative question in this particular instance, asking Ms. Cossman, "You and others at Greenberg assisted with the description of goods on this trademark application?" Pausing to think over the complicated question, Ms. Cossman came up with a perfect attorney-like answer. "I drafted the language." You've got to love lawyers. So, she drafted the language, but didn't know the content of that language.... That makes perfect sense -- if you're a lawyer.

And then, in a wonderful bait and switch move that one had to know was appreciated by the Greenberg attorneys, Mr. Sun and Ms. Hertell, Ms. Cossman noted that the bulk of the trademark work was done by another attorney at Greenberg, Mr. Michael Grace, who later left the firm. And, apparently, never contacted anyone ever, ever again about Mr. Pellicano's trademark application. "I don't know what happened with respect to the application," Ms. Cossman replied, as if Mr. Grace had left Greenberg and landed on the "Lost" island, never to be heard from again. (There's a rumor that Mr. Grace was spotted by Earth Google, sitting on an island talking to a volleyball....) As Mr. Lally struggled between understanding the difference between a trademark and a patent, Ms. Cossman took the opportunity to further confuse him and the jury. "I wouldn't know about a patent," Ms. Cossman said. "Right," Mr. Lally agreed, "I meant the trademark. Do you know if Mr. Pellicano would have had to file a statement of use to get a trademark in Mexico?" Ms. Cossman continued to be confused: "I don't know the process for Mexico." And just for good measure, Ms. Cossman added, "I didn't work on the application at that stage." And with that, she was excused and Mr. Sun and Ms. Hertel most likely suppressed the desire to high five each other as they quickly scooted out of the courtroom.

On Wednesday, Adam Braun, Mr. Kachikian's attorney expects to call more witnesses to show that Mr. Kachikian developed Telesleuth for lawful purposes and was unaware that it would be used for illegal purposes. Ms. Soo Hoo confirmed that her client, Ray Turner, will not testify, but we can expect to hear from Mr. Kachikian. STAY TUNED....

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Michael Ovitz Fingered Over Threats To Anita Busch

2008-04-18T18:24:51Z

After years of speculation, the government offered its answers to a few questions about who they think was behind the threat against Anita Busch--the dead fish and "stop" note that have been the most well known evidence in the case against Mr. Pellicano. In two words--Agent Ornellas identified Michael Ovitz. During Mr. Lally's questioning, Agent Ornellas explained why he initially believed that actor Steven Segal was behind the threat against Anita Busch. Agent Ornellas explained that initially, Alex Proctor stated in recorded conversations that Mr. Pellicano had been hired by Steven Segal to carry out a threat against Anita Busch. (The recorded conversation was between Dan Patterson and Anita Busch.) Mr. Ornellas explained that these conversastions-- about how Mr. Proctor has been hired by Mr. Pellicano to carry out the threat against Ms. Busch-- formed the basis of the warrant to search Mr. Pellicano's offices. Mr. Ornellas noted, under questioning by Mr. Lally, that he later learned after an audit was done of Mr. Arneson's searches of the LAPD databases, that Mr. Segal was not the client who hired Mr. Pellicano to carry out a threat against Anita Busch. "I received an audit of Mr. Arneson's run in May of 2002," said Agent Ornellas. The agent went on to tell the jury that the audit of Mr. Arneson's computer searches contained runs on Bernard Weinraub, Anita Busch, Joyce and Andrew Miller as well as Arthur Bernier and James Casey.

"Mr. Weinraub and Ms. Busch had done a series of articles on Mr. Ovitz that same month," Mr. Ornellas said. Additionally, according to the agent, he found out that Mr. Arneson had also requested photos of Ms. Busch, Mr. Weinraub and the Millers. "Did you interview Mr. Ovitz?" asked Mr. Lally. "Yes, later that year," replied Mr. Ornellas. "He said that he'd hired Mr. Pellicano in April 2002 to gather information on individuals he thought were attacking him in the press....Mr. Ovitz mentioned Ms. Busch's name. He also mentioned Mr. Weinraub and Mr. Geffen."

Mr. Lally continued to question the agent about his suspicions that Mr. Ovitz was behind the threat against Ms. Busch. "Did Mr. Ovitz pay Mr. Pellicano money?" asked Mr. Lally, clearly certain of Mr. Ornellas' answer. "Yes. He paid via check through a law firm and also via cash," replied Agent Ornellas. And just to be clear on the schedule of the payments, Mr. Ornellas added, "The checks were written within a week of accessing Ms. Busch's name and DMV photos by Mr. Arneson."

Mr. Lally then probed into the rest of Mr. Ornellas' investigation of the threat against Ms. Busch. "Did you execute a search warrant on Mr. Pellicano's offsite storage locker?" asked the prosecutor. Mr. Ornellas answered that he had and that he recovered surveillance records from the search written by Pellicano's ex-employee, Denise Ward. "I recovered billing invoices from Ms. Ward who did surveillance on Ms. Busch's residence as well as Mr. Casey and Mr. Bernier," said the detective. Mr. Ornellas added that the surveillance was done before the threat was carried out against Ms. Busch.

Mr. Ornellas further testified that after the November, 2002 search of Mr. Pellicano's office, he learned that Mr. Pellicano had contacted Mr. Ovitz and demanded additional sums of money. "He wanted $20,000 a month," Mr. Ornellas recalled. Mr. Lally had one last question of Mr. Ornellas regarding recording conversations that took place after Mr. Pellicano's imprisonment between Mr. Pellicano and Ron Meyer, the head of Universal Studios. Mr. Lally asked Mr. Ornellas if during the course of listening to those recorded conversations, the two men discussed who was at the heart of Mr. Pellicano's current legal problems. "Yes," said Mr. Ornellas. "And who was that individual?" asked Mr. Lally. "That individual was Mr. Ovitz," replied Mr. Ornellas.

When Mr. Hummel again got up to question Mr. Ornellas on quadruple re-cross, he asked, "Is it possible that Mr. Ovitz had nothing to do with the threat against Ms. Busch?" "Yeah, it's possible," Mr. Ornellas answered skeptically, managing to sublimate an eye roll. And when Mr. Lally got up to do his quadruple re-direct, Mr. Lally asked the question that many of us have been wondering about since the start of this investigation, directly asking if Mr. Ornellas thought Mr. Ovitz was responsible for the threat against Ms. Busch. "It was Mr. Ovitz," answered Mr. Ornellas without hesitation. (Mr. Ovitz has denied under oath on the stand that he was aware of any illegal activities by Mr. Pellicano.)

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: LAPD Employment Scheme

2008-04-18T16:42:47Z

Right now, we're busy listening to a parade of former colleagues of Mr. Arneson's who are testifying to what a.) what a good officer he was and b.) how helpful he was and c.) how they all made lots of arrests together. The idea is to show that Mr. Pellicano wasn't just paying Mr. Arneson to do illegal runs, but that the former detective was also supplying Mr. Arneson with useful law enforcement information.

Given the testimony so far, that seems to be a distinct possibility--since based on the testimony, it appears that Mr. Pellicano did seem to have connections to many of the people that former Sgt. Arneson ended up arresting. On the other hand, it's doubtful if the jury is getting any of that because the testimony has been so dry. One defendant is actually sleeping and several others are busy checking out their nails or surreptitiously trying to do something else that's clearly more interesting than listening to the witnesses. Even Mr. Lally, who's handling many of this morning's objections for the government, had to be prompted by Mr. Saunders to object on a few occasions. (Nothing like an elbow to the side to make a guy scream out an objection.)

But even with the testimony of various LAPD officers testifying about Mr. Arneson's competence on the job, it's hard to believe that the jury is going to forget the beating his credibility took during Mr. Saunders' lengthy and very brutal cross-examination. (Even the judge had to look away at one point because it was just too painful to watch.) But, it can't hurt the defense to have the jury know that Mr. Arneson had some friends in the police department and that he was well respected by the detectives and other officers that worked under him. The problem is that if Mr. Pellicano was indeed a source for Mr. Arneson (along with being his employer), the former Sgt. kept his connection to Mr. Pellicano completely to himself. Unfortunately, as Mr. Saunders pointed out on cross-examination, none of these other officers knew about Mr. Pellicano being a source for Mr. Arneson. So, that means that the only one who's testified to Mr. Pellicano being a source for Mr. Arneson was Mr. Arneson--which doesn't really help him very much.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Pellicano To Testify And A Reminder That Many Wiretappers Were Never Charged

2008-04-18T14:15:42Z

Pellicano declares his intention to testify in his own defense because of some unspecified information he learned last night. Chad Hummel becomes the first one to point out the ridiculous number of admitted wiretappers--both clients and Pellicano employees--not charged in this case.

The day started off with a not-so-surprising announcement from Anthony Pellicano. While the other defense attorneys struggled to keep on their game faces, Mr. Pellicano announced his intention to testify in his own defense. "After some consideration of information that I learned last night, I'm afraid Mr. Pellicano may testify," said the former private eye. While Mr. Pellicano briefly chatted with the judge about how to testify, I'm sure that Mr. Saunders was busy anticipating the prospect of turning Mr. Pellicano into a human pinata on cross-examination.

F.B.I. agent Stan Ornellas was back on the stand this morning, fielding rapid fire questions about his investigation of Mark Arneson, from the former LAPD officer's attorney, Chad Hummel. During his effective cross examination of Mr. Arneson, prosecutor Dan Saunders had made a big deal out of the fact that Mr. Arneson did nothing for his $2500 a month retainer from Mr. Pellicano besides illegally access DMV and criminal history information. This morning, Mr. Hummel tried to show that Mr. Arneson did a multitude of services for his monthly retained, including surveillance, body guarding, security work and subpoena work. Mr. Hummel asked a series of questions attempting to show that the F.B.I. did no investigation to disprove Mr. Arneson's contention that he was paid a monthly retainer to do all sorts of security work for Mr. Pellicano's clients like Farrah Fawcett, Nicholas Cage and even, the elusive Mr. Fields. "Did you attempt to do anything to verify Mr. Arneson's work for Mr. Pellicano's clients Rick Springfield, Mary J. Blige and Bert Fields?" "No," replied Mr. Ornellas, my investigation focused on the criminal aspects of the investigation as it pertained to Mr. Arneson." Apparently, there was no reason to ask Mr. Fields why Mr. Arneson, who Agent Ornellas suspected was allegedly engaged in illegal look-ups for Mr. Pellicano on behalf of Mr. Fields' clients, was busy checking out the security on Mr. Fields' home. It had nothing to do with all those runs that Mr. Arneson's was allegedly doing for Mr. Pellicano--so let's just move on, shall we. Mr. Hummel continued on with his questions, ultimately getting Mr. Ornellas to admit that he'd done nothing to verify Mr. Arneson's claims that he was paid $2500 a month by Mr. Pellicano to do all sorts of work for Mr. Pellicano's clients. "You didn't focus on anything that might exonerate Mr. Arneson?" Mr. Hummel asked before an objection by Mr. Lally was sustained.

Next, Mr. Hummel got Agent Ornellas to admit that he hadn't bothered to investigate how many of the names on the runs done by Mr. Arneson resulted in arrests. Again, Agent Ornellas indicated that type of investigatory work was relevant to this particular case, but Mr. Hummel wasn't having it. "Ever take the time to compare names in Mr. Arneson's arrest log with the names on the audit?" Apparently not relevant.

And then finally, Mr. Hummel had Agent Ornellas give a little overview on the government's case regarding who was charged with wiretapping and RICO in this case and who wasn't. There was a Pellicano source in the District Attorney's office who was alleged involved with Mr. Pellicano, but who was not charged. "Not anybody here, right?" Mr. Hummel said sarcastically. And then there was self-proclaimed wiretapper and transcriber, Tarita Virtue, an ex-Pellicano employee, who was not charged in this case even after lying to the F.B.I. Next, Mr. Hummel brought up Lily LeMasters, an ex-Pellicano love interest and employee, who also lied to the F.B.I., knew about wiretapping and yep, was not charged in this case. There was multi-millionaire hedgefund guy, Adam Sender, who also initially lied to the F.B.I., listened to intercepted calls and was "not charged with any crimes in this case." And, Mr. Hummel's list went on, much to the dismay of the judge who basically told him that he'd made his point. But, Mr. Hummel was not to be deterred, listing off Susan Maguire, ex-wife of Los Angeles tycoon real estate developer Robert Maguire, who also listened to wiretaps and was not charged. There was Sarit Shafrir, a Pellicano client who listened to wiretaps and was not charged while her ex-lover, Abner Nicherie, was not extended the same courtesy by the government. And, just so the jury got the point, Mr. Hummel finished up his list with producer and former actor, Andrew Stevens, music manager Freddie DeMann and Suzan Hughes, ex-wife of Herbalife Founder, Mark Hughes--all admitted wiretappers who were not charged in this case.

In his re-direct, Mr. Lally took pains to try and explain that the failure to charge all of these self-admitted wiretappers may have had something to do with the statute of limitations--a problem that apparently did not extend to the defendants who sit in the stadium seating watching the parade of wealthy law breakers pass on by.

AND JUST IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING IF ANYONE CARES ABOUT AGENT ORNELLAS' TESTIMONY, the answer is yes. Terry Christensen, who's also accused of wiretapping, was so interested in hearing Mr. Hummel's cross of Mr. Ornellas that he had at least five attorneys in court this morning listening away, including Patricia Glaser, his lawyer and partner in the firm Christensen, Glaser.

MORE TO COME....

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Bert Fields Will Not Testify

2008-04-17T18:52:37Z

BREAKING:
Turns out that Mark Arneson's attorney, Chad Hummel, has decided not to call Bert Fields as a witness. So, turns out that the jury will not get to hear any testimony from Mr. Fields on anything related to Mr. Pellicano's alleged wiretapping on behalf of many of Mr. Fields' clients.

The Judge has agreed to allow former Sgt. Mark Arneson's attorney, Chad Hummel, to ask F.B.I. agent Stan Ornellas questions about the nature of his investigation. That's actually a big deal because Mr. Hummel wants to show that the government just decided that Mr. Arneson wasn't telling them the truth when they questioned him and never bothered to verify Mr. Arneson's assertion that he'd done real security work for Mr. Pellicano.

When we last left off on Wednesday, F.B.I. agent Stan Ornellas was testifying on the stand. When Mr. Hummel, attempted to ask Mr. Ornellas questions about whether he investigated Mr. Arneson's assertion that he'd done security work for Mr. Pellicano, the judge basically shut him down. She generally told the defense lawyers that this case wasn't going to turn into a trial on whether the F.B.I. properly investigated the case against Mr. Pellicano and friends. But based on case authority presented by Mr. Hummel today, the judge changed her mind and is going to allow Mr. Hummel to get into the details of Agent Ornellas' investigation.

So, there may be not Bert Fields, but tomorrow could get interesting as the defense puts the F.B.I. investigation under the microscope.

More soon...

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Waiting for Bert and Stan Ornellas Testifies

2008-04-16T18:52:23Z

All in all, the day belonged to Mr. Saunders as he inflicted a punishing cross-examination on former Sgt. Arneson that lasted hours. Before Mr. Arneson even finished his answers, Mr. Saunders was throwing yet another document on the projector--showing the jury over and over again how Mr. Arneson provided Mr. Pellicano with DMV and criminal histories for hundreds of names. (The final figure thrown out by Mr. Saunders was 300 and Mr. Arneson didn't really object to the number.) Mr. Saunders drilled away at Mr. Arneson, asking over and over again about a letter in which Mr. Arneson lied to his superior officer. Mr. Saunders then hammered Mr. Arneson about the officer's contention that Mr. Pellicano had been one of his sources when the officer was still at the LAPD. And after Mr. Arneson repeatedly denied signing a bankruptcy petition and failed to explain his own letters referencing the petition, Mr. Saunders finished him off with "Is this all just a big misunderstanding Sir? Or is this perjury, Sir?" The question was objected to by Mr. Hummel and sustained, but Mr. Saunders' point was made.

After five hours of testimony by Mr. Arneson, the lead case agent, Stan Ornellas, finally took the stand. Under questioning by Mr. Hummel, Mr. Ornellas was a very professional witness, brief and clipped in all of his response to Mr. Hummel's questions. Mr. Hummel did manage to establish that before Mr. Arneson's name surface in connection with a November, 2002 search of Mr. Pellicano's office, Mr. Ornellas and Mr. Arneson were working on a joint investigation into bookmaking in Los Angeles. Apparently, there was a meeting in October of 2002 which included not only Mr. Ornellas, but also Agent Mosser. Agent Mosser also worked on the Pellicano investigation and assisting the government with its case against all the defendants. When Mr. Ornellas indicated that Mr. Mosser had been present at a meeting with Mr. Arneson regarding a joint investigation between the F.B.I. and LAPD, Mr. Hummel said with mock surprise, "This agent Mosser?" pointing to the agent in court.

NEXT UP TOMORROW--jury instructions. The jury is off tomorrow and the court will be dealing with jury instructions. And then on Friday, Mr. Ornellas will re-take the stand and Mr. Hummel is expected to call Bert Fields. But given how slowly things progressed today, we can probably expect Mr. Ornellas to take up residence on the stand for at least a few hours on Friday.

STAY TUNED FOR POSTING TOMORROW....I'LL BE FILLING IN A FEW INTERESTING DETAILS.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: The Little Man Pays and Bert Fields is Next

2008-04-16T12:46:11Z

Mr. Saunders made Mark Arneson pay this morning for taking the stand in his own defense. Mr. Saunders repeatedly asked former Sgt. Arneson about a wide variety of criminal history and DMV runs that he's apparently made on behalf of Mr. Pellicano. Mr. Saunders bounced confidently around the courtroom, showing exhibit after exhibit of runs Mr. Arneson had made for Mr. Pellicano involving Anita Busch, Bernard Weinraub, Jude Green, Keith Carradine and just about everyone else we've seen testify in this trial to having been a target of Mr. Pellicano. At one point, Mr. Saunders asked Mr. Arneson, "You didn't ask why Mr. Pellicano wanted that information, did you?" "No," replied Mr. Arneson. "That's because you didn't care," Mr. Saunders said, quickly moving on to his next question as Mr. Arneson mumbled "Yes."

And then Mr. Saunders tried to establish that Mr. Arneson had done all of this illegal use of the LAPD databases for one and one reason only, money. "You told Mr. Hummel [on direct] that you didn't do this work for Mr. Pellicano for the money?" Mr Saunders started out. As Mr. Arneson entrenched himself in that response, Mr. Saunders took fifteen minutes to show just how much financial trouble Mr. Arneson was in when he was busy looking up information for Mr. Pellicano.

And so, there he was, former Sgt. Mark Arneson who couldn't even make the mortgage payment on his track home in Rancho Pales Verdes being absolutely decimated by Prosecutor Saunders. It was a shining example of just how effective our government can be when it really goes after someone--someone who's not rich enough to buy themselves out of trouble. One couldn't help but think about all those witnesses in this case--the ones in the Beverly Hills mansions with 40 plus phone lines--who didn't have to sit up there and endure Mr. Saunders' very effective cross-examination skills. Clearly, Mr. Saunders has the ability to really put someone on the spot--to expose whether they're lying about what they knew and when they knew it. Clearly, Mr. Saunders has the ability to put some of these people who paid Mr. Pellicano millions of dollars to go after their adversaries and then claimed to know nothing about it. But when it's someone like Mr. Ovitz or Mr. Grey or any number of fabulously wealthy citizens, they were treated to Mr. Saunders' polite side or to deals with the government. They just had to tell the truth about how their lawyers hired Mr. Pellicano and then, they would get to avoid the Mr. Saunders that Mr. Arneson is dealing with right now. But even if Mr. Pellicano's seriously wealthy former clients are still out and about, free to hire whoever becomes the next Mr. Pellicano here in town, we can at least rest easy that at least this former LAPD officer, who looked up names for all these rich people, is being made to pay for his crimes. It's all got to make you feel better about our system of justice.

NEXT UP, Bert Fields takes the stand. And, it looks like he brought a good portion of the Greenberg firm with him to watch the him work.

Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom.

Allison Hope Weiner: Pellicano Trial: Judge Denies Mistrial

2008-04-15T18:08:03Z

So, the Judge wasn't buying it. After an impassioned speech by Mr. Hummel, Mr. Saunders got up and basically shut it all down. First, he apologized again for indulging in what even he admitted wasn't the best line of questioning, but added that it really didn't matter in the long run since basically, even if you throw out this portion of Mr. Arneson lying about something, there are other things that he's admitted to lying about. It was the "Chad Hummel is throwing a hail mary to try and save his client after a disastrous turn on the stand" defense and the Judge agreed. She said that she was willing to give a curative instruction to the jury about this whole matter, but that there would be no mistrial. And then she added that this was not the first time that Mr. Hummel has objected after the fact to a line of questioning and requested a mistrial....it was the "I'm on to Chad" line of reasoning. And the Judge agreed that Mr. Lally hadn't really had a good listen to the compelled statements of Mr. Arneson, that he'd done the right thing by chucking them to another lawyer and that, in the end, nobody had really been prejudiced by the whole thing. As for Mr. Arneson, he's back on the stand tomorrow morning to answer more questions from Mr. Saunders. And given the fact that Mr. Saunders spent some time testifying today because of Mr. Arneson, I imagine that he's not going to be in a good mood when he resumes his cross examination.

Also expected on the bill tomorrow, Bert Fields. He was here today, ready to go along with his trusty entourage of lawyers. It's possible that his testimony on direct may be some of the most interesting of the trial if Mr. Hummel decides to really let it fly and ask the questions that the government has so far avoided. Tomorrow, maybe the trial will finally be about be about the lawyers and not about Pellicano, who was really just the tool they hired to do their dirty work.