B-movie case with an A-list crowd

The 63-year-old Pellicano, acting as his own attorney, now faces trial with his remaining co-defendants: ex-LAPD Sgt. Mark Arneson, former telephone company technician Rayford Earl Turner, computer consultant Kevin Kachikian and Las Vegas businessman Abner Nicherie. All have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Pellicano will be tried on separate counts with entertainment attorney Terry Christensen about a month after the first trial concludes, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Among the longest-running criminal cases in recent Hollywood history, the Pellicano investigation began with an event straight out of an old B movie.

On the morning of June 20, 2002, then-Times reporter Anita Busch awoke to a neighbor's news that someone had smashed the windshield of Busch's car.

Walking to her vehicle, Busch found a dead fish, a rose and a note with a one-word warning: "STOP."

Busch told authorities she believed that the threat was a result of her research into action film star Steven Seagal and his onetime producing partner, Julius R. Nasso, who had been indicted with New York mob figures for allegedly plotting to extort Seagal.

The day after the threat, Busch said, she had six voice-mail messages at her office from someone wanting to talk with her about her reporting on Seagal.

The caller, an FBI informant, told her he had recently met a man who said he had been hired by a detective agency to intimidate Busch.

The detective agency, authorities later alleged, was Pellicano's.

But what began as a little-noticed threat investigation quickly grew into a sweeping and high-profile inquiry into the inner workings of Hollywood deal-making, litigation and domestic scandals. And, at the center of the probe was the self-described investigator to the stars.

With a celebrity client list that other private eyes could only dream about, Pellicano had been a Tinseltown fixture for two decades, working on behalf of superstars including Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Tom Cruise.

His manner gruff, his theatrics a perfect fit for Hollywood, Pellicano relished the reputation as a "fixer" who made problems go away.

As a three-year FBI investigation would conclude, Pellicano was good at what he did. And, authorities alleged, he was good because he broke the law with abandon, often aided by police officers, telephone company employees and others.