http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18077629%255E29677,00.html
*To keep up with the nomenclature of "Indian Centipede," "British Centipede," and "Greek Centipede," this phone-tapping, hacking and actress-centric caper ought to be called "American Centipede." However, I'm gonna keep that term in reserve due to an
intuition that a much larger, federal, presidential centipede
will come writhing out of the closet, soon.
We'll just call this one "Hollywood Centipede."
In the meantime, just look at the weirdly familiar modus
operandi here. Over and over, country after country,
the bent cops, the "private investigator," the bent phone employees,
the hacker, the actors... Where is the political connection
here, I'm wondering? If you can't have a centipede without
actresses, can you really have a centipede without some
politicians?
This is the first centipede to make the front page of Google News.
Hollywood drama features real-life crooked gumshoe
Robert Lusetich, Los Angeles correspondent
February 08, 2006
ANTHONY Pellicano, a tough-guy Hollywood private investigator straight out of central casting, was charged yesterday with masterminding a wire-tapping enterprise that spied on a host of movie industry figures, including Sylvester Stallone.
Federal agents allege the PI, known as The Pelican, used criminal means to dig dirt on the Rocky star, comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon, actor Keith Carradine, Hollywood executives and journalists. (((The Greeks were also big on tapping journalists.)))
The 61-year-old had just been released from prison after serving 30 months for storing grenades and explosives at his office in West Hollywood. (((You never know when a few of those will be handy.))
He has refused to co-operate with the FBI, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges laid out in the 110-count indictment.
The indictment alleges Pellicano paid two crooked cops - Mark Arneson, 52, who has pleaded not guilty, and Craig Stevens, 45, who pleaded guilty - to sift through the confidential records on people his clients were in dispute with.
Arneson was allegedly paid almost $US200,000 ($266,000) for the information.
Two former phone company workers, Raymond Turner (((tghe telco guy))) and Teresa Wright, (((cherchez la femme))), who has also pleaded guilty, allegedly made it possible for Pellicano to tape telephone calls by installing a software program developed by Kevin Kachikian, 41, (((the hacker))) who was arrested yesterday.
Also arrested was Robert Pfeifer, former president of Disney-owned Hollywood Records, who allegedly hired Pellicano to spy on a former girlfriend. (((The Matthew Mellon-Tamara Mellon angle. They start with an unbearable sexual jealousy, then, once they get their mitts on the hardware, they figure out that they can stalk ANYBODY.)))
What remains to be seen is whether any of the rich and famous people Pellicano worked for will also be charged, or what will come of his boast that he did favours for the Los Angeles Police Department and the District Attorney's office. (((Did I mention the politicians?)))
"We'll do the investigation and see what the facts show," acting US Attorney George Cardona said. (((Really? S'pose the facts show that the NSA was doing it in super-secret 'cause the President told 'em too. You think an "acting US Attorney" would get very far on that trail? Maybe about as far as Amar Singh has gotten in India.)))
"These charges allege a disturbing pattern (((I'll say))) of criminal conduct, in which money flowed freely to sworn law-enforcement officers to violate their oath to uphold the law and provide the means for Pellicano and his associates to violate the rights of others."
Much of the speculation about who Pellicano might take down with him has centred on one of Hollywood's most high-profile lawyers, Bert Fields.
Fields, whose client list stretches from Tom Cruise to Rupert Murdoch, (((Rupert Murdoch?))) has acknowledged using Pellicano as an investigator, but said the private detective was not authorised to break the law.
Two prominent Hollywood identities - Brad Grey, the head of Paramount Studios, and former super-agent Michael Ovitz - were represented by Fields in cases in which Pellicano was used. Shandling had a long legal fight with Grey, while Ovitz was known to be unhappy about investigative reporting by former New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub and Anita Busch of the Los Angeles Times. (((Oh really.)))
The Pelican - whose motto is "Your problem becomes my problem" - came to Hollywood from his native Chicago in the 1980s and was pivotal in getting John DeLorean acquitted of cocaine charges.
He traded on his tough-guy image, boasted of contacts with the mafia and has been implicated in numerous covert acts of intimidation.
But it was a relatively minor matter that landed him in this trouble. In 2002, probably acting on behalf of actor Steven Segal - who was furious that journalists were looking into his relationships with mafia figures - Pellicano hired a thug, Alexander Proctor, to frighten Busch. Proctor left a dead fish in a box with a rose on her car windscreen, which he had broken, and a note which read: "Stop".
Busch reported the incident, which led to Proctor's arrest. He gave up Pellicano, and the explosives were found in a raid on his offices in relation to that incident, along with files containing billions of pages (((BILLIONS? I hope he's got Google Desktop Search))) of illegally taped phone conversations.
