Monday, October 7, 2024

Congrats, LA Prosecutors, Former Private Eye Anthony Pellicano Is Back in Business, Even Though He Says He Isn’t

Share

Congrats to the LA Prosecutors. You did such a good job getting rid of Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano that he’s back!

Pellicano was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2008 following his conviction on 78 charges of wiretapping, racketeering, conspiracy and wire fraud. He had been in custody since 2003, and was most recently serving his sentence at Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution in San Pedro, a low security facility. He was released in March 2019. He’s still got a year left of supervised parole. He lost his state license, and he’s not allowed to be a private investigator.

But Variety reports he is nonetheless back in business. He’s working for “Die Hard” and “Lethal Weapon” producer, old school Hollywood soldier Joel Silver. Silver is in an arbitration with his former financier, Canadian billionaire Daryl Katz. Pellicano tells Variety he’s helping Silver negotiate an agreement.

But Pellicano is just doing what he always did: he’s digging up dirt to use against Katz. He showed Variety a document that reads: “I grant to Pellicano full authority to act in any manner that is legal, proper and necessary to exercise the foregoing powers, including legally obtaining all information relative to this matter.”

He insists this is not doing private eye work. But he’s set up a website for his new company called Pellicano Negotiations. In his heyday, Pellicano was famous for inventing ways to eavesdrop on his clients’ enemies, mostly by bugging them.

Variety’s Gene Maddaus got a scoop: they listened to the tape of a phone call in which Pellicano was trying to obtain a police report that involves Katz.

“Yes, I want it,” Pellicano says on the call. “What I need to do is find the officer who… actually wrote up the report. Oftentimes what happens is that they send out just a patrol officer and he writes up a little rudimentary report, and then they turn it in and then the detective is assigned, so I need all that information if it’s still available. I’ve gotten police reports from 25, 30 years ago.”

Los Angeles is a great town. If you’re a celebrity or you’re connected to the right people and you commit a crime, very little will happen to you. And you can go right back to whatever it was you were doing.

Do you now see why Trump must be found guilty in the impeachment? It’s the only way to guarantee he can’t run for President again.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

Read more

In Other News