Tag: Anthony Pellicano

Former "private investigator to the stars" Anthony Pellicano today was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, despite the fact that the Probation Department recommended 5 years. Last month the judge sentenced one of his co-conspirators, lawyer Terry Christianson, to 3 years despite Probation recommending home detention.

Background on the case is available from our past coverage here.

FBI Agent Mark T. Rossini of New York has been charged in Los Angeles with illegally accessing FBI computers in 2007 to help the once-famous, former private investigator, Anthony Pellicano, who was facing illegal wiretapping and racketeering charges. Pellicano was convicted and is in prison.

In May, Pellicano was convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles of conspiring to run a criminal enterprise that employed illegal wiretaps to dig up dirt on the rich and famous on behalf of his elite Hollywood clients. Pellicano is awaiting sentencing for convictions on those 76 counts, as well as for convictions in August in a separate trial for wiretapping and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

It looks like Rossini has already made a deal: the charges were filed by information and consist of five misdemeanors of illegal access to computers. [More...]

"Private Eye to the Stars" Anthony Pellicano and his co-defendants, including a former LAPD officer, were convicted of multiple counts of racketeering and other crimes related to illegal wiretapping today. (Background on the charges is here.)

The trial lasted 9 weeks. The jury began deliberating May 1. Pellicano, who had recently finished serving time on explosives charges when this case began, represented himself. He refused to provide information about his clients:

Pellicano told the jury he was just a P.I. trying to get information. But he never revealed his secrets.

After publicly toying with testifying, he told the judge he would never discuss his clients. "It's not going to happen ever, no matter what the consequence," he said.

Back in 2003, when the probe started, he said: [More...]

The trial of former Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano on illegal wiretapping charges was just about to wind up. But the Government today decided to call a rebuttal witness to impeach the credibility of former police sergeant Mark Arneson, one of Pellicano's co-defendants, and it blew up in their face. The witness may now be charged with a crime and the Judge is considering a mistrial.

Allison Hope Weiner has been in the courtroom and writes up what happened for Huffington Post. For those of you who like good trial theater, this is it.