Free Republic

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...

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...

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...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Attorneys for a former Los Angeles Times reporter who was threatened while researching a story on an alleged Hollywood extortion plot have subpoenaed agent Michael Ovitz to give a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit. The lawsuit filed in June 2004 in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges Pellicano and others, including former Los Angeles police Sgt. Mark Arneson, directed and led threats and attacks against Busch. Busch was researching a possible link between actor Steven Seagal and a reputed Mafia associate in June 2002 when she found her car's windshield punctured by an apparent bullet hole....

Disney shareholders are demanding the media giant's directors repay the company $262 million for failing to properly police the hiring and firing of Michael Ovitz. The total includes $129.8 million in severance paid to Ovitz plus $132.4 million in interest dating from the December 1996 firing, according to court papers filed yesterday which outline the shareholders' closing argument. "The record demonstrates that the [Disney] board recklessly and faithlessly ignored its fiduciary responsibilities by failing properly to assess the terms of [the contract] before hiring Ovitz," lawyers for the shareholders claim. "In fact, the board's misconduct went far beyond mere inattentiveness...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Billionaire investor Ron Burkle sued Michael Ovitz on Thursday, claiming the former Walt Disney Co. president breached an agreement to invest in Internet businesses and to allow Burkle to buy into his talent agency and the Google search engine. The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages. Ovitz's attorney, James Ellis, said the allegations are "baseless and false." "The lawsuit was filed in retaliation for Mr. Ovitz having come forward with facts which revealed that Mr. Burkle and his affiliates had breached their fiduciary duties and engaged in other unlawful activities," Ellis...

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS in life that disappoint, and people who don’t live up to their billing. But not Michael Ovitz, in what is sarcastically being billed as “The Trial of the Century.” For days now, internal memos and expert testimony inside Delaware Chancery Court had described the guy we love to hate as a “psychopath” and “congenital liar” (not to mention recounting behavior that merited other terms of endearment like “spendthrift,” “incompetent” and “fraud”). Before the trial, sources close to Ovitz told L.A. Weekly that the Creative Artists Agency co-founder was relishing the opportunity to go to court....