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Los Angeles -- Imprisoned private investigator Anthony Pellicano, who is accused of eavesdropping on Hollywood's rich and famous, called the federal wiretapping case against him bogus and reiterated a promise that he would not testify against his former clients. Pellicano, 62, spoke via phone to the Los Angeles Times for the first time since he was indicted by a grand jury in February. He has pleaded not guilty to more than 100 counts and is awaiting trial on charges of wiretapping such stars as Sylvester Stallone and paying two police officers to run names, including comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin...

Federal prosecutors allege that a law enforcement official who was investigating a fake passport scheme was subjected to an illegal background check by indicted private eye Anthony Pellicano, who was representing the subject of the probe. Prosecutors claim Pellicano had checks run on George Mueller, an investigator with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, and five other people connected to the probe of a Frenchman named Christopher Rocancourt. Mueller said that while he was investigating Rocancourt in the mid-1990s, Rocancourt called him to boast of a "contact" with access to confidential law-enforcement information. "Knowing that a suspect in a...

A U.S. District Court judge presiding over the trial of a private investigator accused of wiretapping Hollywood celebrities said prosecutors can use evidence gathered in a search of his offices. FBI agents raided Anthony Pellicano's offices in 2002 and found illegal explosives. Authorities were investigating whether Pellicano hired a man to threaten a Los Angeles Times reporter working on a story about actor Steven Seagal and his possible links to the Mafia. Pellicano's attorney Steven Gruel challenged the legality of the search, contending the raids were a ruse to get inside and look for suspected wrongdoing. FBI agents seized computers...

Defense attorneys are responsible for leaking confidential FBI summaries to the media in a Hollywood wiretapping case, federal prosecutors argued in court documents. Prosecutors said articles citing FBI interviews with Hollywood power brokers didn't start showing up in the New York Times until after information had been turned over to defense attorneys as part of the pretrial discovery process. Because a protective order may have been violated, the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine who leaked the details. "The protective order was materially breached when at least one of the members of the defense team provided material...

A famous Los Angeles private detective who was busted by the FBI last week with an arsenal of explosives big enough to arm a small al Qaeda terror cell was deeply involved in former President Bill Clinton's efforts to intimidate his ex-girlfriends into silence, according to senior Bush White House advisor Mary Matalin. Before joining the White House in 2001 as counselor to Vice President Cheney and assistant to President Bush, Matalin worked as political director of Bush 41's failed 1992 reelection effort. In the interim, while hosting her own nationally syndicated talk radio show on Washington, D.C.'s WRC-AM,...

Newly unsealed documents in billionaire Ron Burkle's divorce include allegations by his former wife that he spied on her, their young son and her boyfriend. The documents, released late Friday, also included a declaration from Burkle's 29-year-old daughter that her father once told her his security staff had videos of wife Janet Burkle and her boyfriend having sex. Burkle's attorney, Patricia L. Glaser, disputed the allegations in a letter to the Los Angeles Times. "Mr. Burkle never told his daughter any such thing," Glaser said. "There are no such videotapes. There was no such eavesdropping. This is not true." The...

In the world of Hollywood fantasy, no occupation has been quite as mythologized as the private detective - the gumshoe in the shadows bending the law while spying on cheating spouses or lying business partners. In their endless push for fame and fortune, some Hollywood power brokers bought into the character and found a real-life private eye with a dubious reputation. Federal prosecutors now say Anthony Pellicano used wiretaps, threats and blackmail to help lawyers and their clients win high-stakes legal disputes. Other private eyes complain the case has confused fact and fiction about their work while showing how far...

Federal prosecutors alleged Monday that Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano recently conspired with known mobsters in Chicago to put a prison "hit" on the man he allegedly hired to threaten a Los Angeles Times reporter. The hit, according to court papers, was allegedly aimed at Alexander Proctor, an ex-convict who was arrested for placing a dead fish with a rose in its mouth and a sign that said "Stop" on the windshield of reporter Anita Busch's car in the summer of 2002. When an FBI informant later surfaced with Proctor on tape boasting that he was working for Pellicano, federal...

Wednesday, May 04, 2005 THE OTHER HILLARY CLINTON [More stories it's better to read now than during the campaign] IF HILLARY CLINTON runs for president one of the people you'll be hearing about is Anthony Pellicano, a west coast private eye, currently doing time on explosives charges. The Clintons owe a lot to Pellicano. Although the their lawyer denies it, a number of other sources are convinced Pellicano was working for Hillary and Bill when he falsely suggested that the Gennifer Flowers' tape of Bill's calls was faked. In fact, Pellicano was a high school dropout with no professional qualifications...

When A-list stars have legal troubles or need to negotiate seven-figure movie deals, they often turn to powerhouse attorney Bert Fields. The 77-year-old legal legend has built a reputation as one of the most feared litigators in Hollywood while working for Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and other celebrities. Now, it's Fields who may need help. In recent months, prosecutors have been investigating his involvement with private investigator Anthony Pellicano, the suspected kingpin of a wiretapping ring accused in a federal indictment of threats and blackmail while digging up dirt to help clients in legal disputes. Prosecutors believe actor...

Federal authorities have begun a criminal investigation into who leaked confidential FBI documents The investigation will be conducted by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego. Attorneys representing Pellicano and six others under indictment in the wiretapping scandal also have been given FBI investigative reports known as "302s" and other documents in the case. Under a protective order issued by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer almost four weeks ago, they can share the information only with their clients and potential witnesses. The confidential information was first disclosed two weeks ago, when the New York Times published the first of...

Published: April 27, 2006 4:00 PM ET NEW YORK While much of the press continues to focus on the titillating Hollywood aspects of the sensational Anthony Pellicano case in Los Angeles, the threat to not just movie stars, but journalists, seems to be growing day by day. For one thing, there’s a new federal probe: The influential legal publication Los Angeles Daily Journal has revealed that the U.S. Justice Dept. and the FBI are considering mounting an investigation into who leaked FBI summaries of witness interviews to the New York Times. A court hearing is scheduled for Monday, at which...

Private investigator Anthony Pellicano allegedly searched confidential criminal databases for incriminating information on a Hungarian model after she asserted a paternity claim against comedian Chris Rock, court records and interviews show. The disclosure adds the biggest celebrity name thus far to the list of people whom Pellicano purportedly sought to help by intimidating courtroom foes. The model, Monika Zsibrita, 33, was named in a February indictment as one of numerous victims of Pellicano's alleged wiretapping and racketeering conspiracy on behalf of A-list Hollywood attorneys and other prominent clients.

LOS ANGELES, April 19 — When the supermarket billionaire Ronald W. Burkle accused a New York Post gossip columnist of demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for protection from nasty items in Page Six, it was not the first time that he had told authorities he was the victim of a shakedown. In 2002, Mr. Burkle has told federal investigators, the Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano demanded that Mr. Burkle pay him $100,000 to $250,000 in exchange for Mr. Pellicano's agreeing not to investigate him. Mr. Pellicano told him he had been hired by Michael S. Ovitz, the former talent...

Pellicano did work directly with one president: during Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign Pellicano was hired, reportedly by Hillary Clinton, to discredit Gennifer Flowers, the woman who alleged that she had maintained a 12-year affair with the candidate. Six years later, with Clinton into his second term, the White House, according to the New York Post, hired Pellicano, considered a respected forensic audio specialist, to look into Monica Lewinsky's background. Another report places Pellicano, who was hired by OJ Simpson before the murder of Nicole Simpson, outside her house on the night that she was killed... Anthony Pellicano has worked...

A somber "Die Hard" director John McTiernan stood before a federal judge and said he made "knowingly false" statements to an FBI agent about Anthony Pellicano, the celebrity private eye he admitted hiring to wiretap a business associate. McTiernan, who pleaded guilty Monday to making false statements, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced July 31. He is the highest-profile figure yet to be named in the investigation of Pellicano, who is accused of bugging phones and bribing police to get information on celebrities and others. Pellicano has pleaded not guilty.

LOS ANGELES, April 13 — The chairman of Paramount Pictures and a onetime Hollywood superagent had far more direct dealings than they have acknowledged publicly with the celebrity detective at the center of a rapidly expanding wiretapping scandal, according to government evidence. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Graphic: Connected Brad Grey, Paramount's chairman, told the F.B.I. that he spoke with Anthony Pellicano about two lawsuits in which Mr. Pellicano, a private detective, was working on Mr. Grey's behalf, and that he learned information about his legal opponents directly from Mr. Pellicano. A former employee of Mr. Pellicano, who was charged...

In a blockbuster story for tomorrow's edition, The New York Times reports "government evidence" that Brad Grey and Mike Ovitz "had far more direct dealings than they have publicly acknowledged" with Pellicano. The story drags the current chairman of Paramount Pictures (Grey) and the ex-Most Powerful Man in Hollywood (Ovitz) further into the Pellicano case with way more detail about what both men have reportedly told the FBI. The paper reports that Grey changed his account of events from one July 2003 interview with the FBI to another January 2004 FBI interview. It says Ovitz admitted to the FBI "he asked Pellicano for embarrassing...

CBS) LOS ANGELES Movie director John McTiernan Monday became the 14th person charged in the case involving Hollywood sleuth-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano. McTiernan, who has directed such films as "Die Hard", "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "The Hunt for Red October," is charged in a criminal information with one count of lying to FBI investigators when he denied knowing about Pellicano's alleged wiretapping. Prosecutors allege McTiernan hired Pellicano to wiretap producer Charles Roven. A federal criminal information is different from an indictment in that it is filed by prosecutors, and not a grand jury. It is frequently filed when the defendant...

A Valencia businessman admitted Friday to conspiring with Anthony Pellicano to illegally dig up information about a teenager who had accused him of sexual assault, becoming the latest witness cooperating in the federal probe of the indicted private eye. "I hired Mr. Pellicano because he told me he could listen in" to the young woman's phone calls, a shaken George Kalta, 37, told U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer, as he entered his guilty plea. "That was the only reason I hired Mr. Pellicano." The plea makes Kalta the fourth person to acknowledge that they hired — or helped —...