Pellicano trial a story made for Hollywood

The L.A. Times reports:

As a three-year FBI investigation would conclude, Pellicano was good at what he did. And, authorities alleged, he was good because he broke the law with abandon, often aided by police officers, telephone company employees and others.

In a 110-count indictment unsealed in February 2006, a federal grand jury described Pellicano as the ringleader of a racketeering conspiracy that included Arneson, 54, of Culver City and Turner, 51, of Van Nuys.

For years, the indictment charged, the trio used wiretaps, bribery, identity theft and obstruction to enhance Pellicano's reputation and service his well-heeled clients. Along the way, the indictment said, Pellicano paid Arneson at least $189,000 and Turner no less than $36,000.

And, there were other important characters in this plot, authorities alleged.

Kachikian, 43, of Fountain Valley was charged with developing the wiretapping software -- dubbed Telesleuth -- used by Pellicano. Three others -- music producer Pfeifer, 50, of Hollywood and brothers Daniel and Abner Nicherie of Las Vegas -- were charged with involvement in specific instances of aiding and abetting wiretapping.

Although authorities contend that Pellicano routinely used wiretaps to gain the upper hand on adversaries, they have so far acknowledged having only one recording of illegal surveillance. Instead, prosecutors intend to rely on written summaries of alleged wiretaps and testimony from people who say they either helped Pellicano with wiretaps or heard recordings of illegally taped conversations.

Apart from wiretaps, authorities cited nearly 100 instances in which Pellicano and Arneson allegedly accessed confidential law enforcement records, including the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, to gain information about targets including comedian Garry Shandling, former "Saturday Night Live" star Kevin Nealon and real estate developer Robert Maguire.

One week after the original indictment, authorities added the name of prominent entertainment attorney Christensen to the list of defendants, alleging that he paid Pellicano $100,000 to wiretap the ex-wife of his longtime client, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.

By the time the indictments were unsealed, authorities had secured guilty pleas from Pellicano's onetime girlfriend, Sandra Carradine, who admitted lying about Pellicano's alleged wiretapping of her ex-husband, and former Beverly Hills cop Stevens, who admitted illegally accessing police computers for Pellicano and lying about it to the FBI.

No word yet from Hollywood liberals on the civil liberties aspects of this case.