Feds To Lay Out Their Pellicano Case

This blog is of the opinion that, rather than caviling about potentially boring witness lists even as we finally have Anthony Pellicano in the dock, we should embrace--entertainment-wise if not ethically--the forcibly retired detective. You could hardly call what he's accused of, in 111 counts of federal indictment, victimless crimes; but excluding some Jane Does and true innocents caught in the web, in large part his illicit wiretapping and other maneuvers were used against people who had the unfortunate temerity to nestle in--whether in business or love--with the kind of fat cats who practice skullduggery.

It's a row of cautionary tales that's Dickensian in the boardroom sense, if not the street sense. (The street sense being much adulterated since it was brought up by the unctuous reporter Scott Templeton as he claws for a polluted Pulitzer on The Wire-- which exemplary show, sadly, concludes its run on HBO this coming Sunday.)

A little Dickens, then, may be apt into this tale of sharpie hedge-funders, wayward lawyers, grasping financiers and the scoundrels who serve them (this from Our Mutual Friend):

The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentleman is a gentleman of property. He invests his property. He goes, in a condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings of Directors, and has to do with traffic in Shares. As is well known to the wise in their generation, traffic in Shares is the one thing to have to do with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no cultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough to be on Boards of Direction in capital letters, oscillate on mysterious business between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come from? Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. Has he any principles? Shares. What squeezes him into Parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, never originated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all; Shares. O mighty Shares! To set those blaring images so high, and to cause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, to cry out, night and day, 'Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech ye take rank among the powers of the earth, and fatten on us'!

There are in fact, on the government list of those who may be called, plenty of show business names to conjure with, as we imagine the self-represented Pellicano given license to interrogate them on the stand.

There's Keith Carradine (and wife/nemesis Sandra), sometime Madonna manager Freddy DeMann, ex-Garry Shandling girlfriend Linda Doucett, Farrah Fawcett (needs no intro), Bertram Fields (bulldog attorney), Alec, Lisa and Tom Gores (as mentioned here Monday, two of them are on the Forbes 100 list, two are brothers, two were spouses, and two were intimate with the third), Paramount chief Brad Grey (the least happy to be included in the roll call until we get down to the M's, and Universal chief Ron Meyer), Kevin Huvane (CAA partner) Bryan Lourd (CAA partner), John McTiernan (director, free on appeal from an earlier court case, who will likely have to interrupt the shooting of his movie Run in Argentina), Michael Ovitz (ex-agent), Kathy Pellicano (a/k/a/ Kat, remarried to the key subject of interest last year and perhaps unable to testify?) Chris Rock (of the mournful dialog with Pellicano, as repeated in the New York Times, after being accused of forced sex), Charles Roven (subject of McTiernan's scrutiny via Pellicano), Shandling, Sylvester Stallone, Kenneth Starr (errand boy sent by grocery clerks), Andrew Stevens, Tarita Virtue (Pellicano office functionary appeared disrobed in Maxim, thus qualified), and Matt Williams (whose curious 35-homer outburst in his marriage year of 1999 put my rotisserie team in contention, no asterisks involved, though he sank to 12, 16, then 12, as the suspicious husband of actress (Blame It On Rio) Michelle Johnson (36C-26-36 per IMDB)) in the subsequent three years, leading to divorce.

So, what with all Pellicano's Telesleuthing, the witness list provides a few Dickensian names, Coffin and Eurich and Lull, Mestman and Mosser, Pair and Peace, Rose and Sender (the hedge funder), Shillingford and Snodgrass, Turner and Wasser (whoops, that's Dennis, divorce attorney to Cruise, Spielberg, Eastwood and Kerkorian--more on that later and his separately-charged lawyer Terry Christensen in tomorrow's post). And the obscure names will almost certainly outpoint the more famous ones for interesting testimony.

With the main jury selection accomplished by yesterday afternoon, and just six alternates needed in addition to round out the group that will try to keep a poker face during the festivities, Thursday should kick off the interesting portion of the trial, with the government's opening statement scheduled for 8 a.m. and the defense--in essence, Anthony Pellicano-- having the choice to open similarly or reserve their statement until the prosecution closes its case.