Kirk Kerkorian denies knowing whether ex-wife was wiretapped
The billionaire investor testifies at the trial of his longtime lawyer and friend Terry Christensen, who is accused of hiring Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Kerkorian's ex-wife.
Billionaire investor and casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian testified today that he had no knowledge of any wiretap targeting his ex-wife during his bitter child support battle six years ago.
Kerkorian, who rarely speaks in public and is known for shunning publicity, testified at the trial of his longtime lawyer and friend Terry Christensen.
Christensen, a member of Kerkorian's small circle of devoted loyalists, is on trial in federal district court alongside private investigator to the stars Anthony Pellicano. Each man faces two felony counts in connection with the alleged wiretapping of Kerkorian's ex-wife during the couple's heated legal battle over her demands for a steep increase in child support for her then 4-year-old daughter.
The 91-year-old Kerkorian, who wore a blue blazer and magenta tie, had to ask attorneys to speak up a couple of times when they asked him questions. He called Christensen an "honest" and "true" friend.
Kerkorian's testimony was brief -- about 30 minutes -- and fairly uneventful.
Shortly after Kerkorian was sworn in, Christensen's attorney, Patricia Glaser, asked him to summarize his "personal background."
"How far down?" Kerkorian replied, eliciting laughs from jurors.
"You have two minutes," the judge said, which again prompted jurors and members of the audience to chuckle.
With that, Kerkorian quickly condensed a legendary business career into a few sentences: He said he dropped out of school in the seventh grade, flew planes in the military, started an airline and went into other business ventures, which included casinos, automobile manufacturing and oil.
He only briefly touched on his legal battle with Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, a former tennis pro who is almost 50 years his junior. He said he knew nothing about Bonder Kerkorian being wiretapped.
A judge barred prosecutors from asking about conversations between Kerkorian and Christensen on what Pellicano was doing in the child support case. Both Kerkorian's and Christensen's attorneys had argued that those were privileged legal conversations between a lawyer and his client.
Kerkorian drew widespread media attention during the tawdry court battle with Bonder Kerkorian that included her financial demands, his charge that she had defrauded him into believing her daughter was his biological child and the revelation that the girl had, in fact, been fathered by another man, Hollywood producer Steve Bing.
