Pellicano trial is 'yesterday's news'

They're still eating lunch in this town, thank you.

Three days into the racketeering and wiretap trial of Anthony Pellicano, many of the private investigator's former Hollywood clients are merrily conducting business as usual.

Paramount chief Brad Grey is prepping for the release of the new installment of "Indiana Jones." Mega-lawyer Bert Fields is still defending Tom Cruise from scurrilous attacks. And former Creative Artists Agency kingpin Michael Ovitz is doing the chichi thing for former titans: checking out new media.

In his opening statements Thursday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kevin M. Lally discussed instances in which Ovitz, Grey and other clients hired Pellicano to investigate their adversaries and the private eye's alleged penchant for illegally accessing victim's personal records and listening to their private phone calls. Ovitz, Fields and Grey are all on the government's witness list, but they have not been charged with anything. The three have maintained they had no knowledge of Pellicano's alleged illegal methods.

Hollywood loves a good courtroom drama, and there's plenty of potential for that in this trial at the Roybal Federal Building downtown. It revolves around how the wealthy hired Pellicano to investigate adversaries -- allegedly by wiretapping many of them -- in various business and personal disputes.

Though the case could still provide a rare glimpse into the winning-at-any-cost mentality of some of Los Angeles' most entitled, it might be hard for a 5-year-old scandal to hold public attention. With the exception of Grey, many of the names promised on the government's witness list -- Sylvester Stallone, Garry Shandling and Farrah Fawcett -- are past their sell-by date. By Day 3, the judge had closed the extra courtroom that had been set aside for media.

"It's kind of yesterday's news," says studio chief-turned-producer Bill Mechanic. "There were all these rumors a couple of years ago that it would explode, and it seemingly never did."

"The only thing anybody cared about -- and cares about -- is 'Is anyone we know getting indicted? Oh, gee, it's nobody from Hollywood.' "

"It becomes 'Who cares?' " says another producer, who declined to be named because he knows the players.

"The only bombshell would be if [Pellicano] turns" on his former clients, says one Hollywood fixture who knows the private eye and prefers not to be named. "He should do it. Everybody has abandoned him. That's my opinion. He didn't invent these things he did. Someone hired him to do it. Aren't they just as guilty?"