Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California man on Friday admitted paying ex-private eye Anthony Pellicano to intercept phone calls, becoming the first defendant to say in open court he hired Pellicano to engage in wiretapping. George Kalta, one of 13 people charged so far in the federal wiretap case surrounding Pellicano that has become a major scandal in Tinseltown, implicated the Hollywood sleuth before a federal judge as he pleaded guilty to conspiracy. The 37-year-old owner of a wholesale lighting business was accused in a U.S. District Court indictment of paying Pellicano $25,000 in 2001 to eavesdrop on a woman...

Reaching for the first time into the upper ranks of Hollywood's legal establishment, the federal grand jury investigating private eye Anthony Pellicano indicted prominent Los Angeles entertainment attorney Terry N. Christensen on Wednesday for allegedly having the ex-wife of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian wiretapped. Christensen paid Pellicano $100,000 to listen in on Lisa Bonder Kerkorian's phone calls to her attorneys and to share the information with Christensen, Kerkorian's longtime lawyer and business partner, to give him a tactical edge in a bitter child support case in 2002, the grand jury alleged. (snip) Christensen, best known as lawyer for Kerkorian, one...