Based on its opening, Pellicano trial is a dud

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?"

As Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson says: "The clients didn't get punished, but the providers did. That's generally true. Now the clients had more plausible deniability. 'We wanted the information, but we didn't tell them to get it illegally.' Those who benefited the most aren't paying the price. The prosecution needs them as witnesses."

Pellicano is in downtown's Metropolitan Detention Center and faces hundreds of years in prison if convicted on all counts. Seven others have already pleaded guilty to various Pellicano-related charges. Yet with the exceptions of director John McTiernan, former music executive Robert Pfeifer and entertainment lawyer Terry Christensen, many who bought Pellicano's wares have not been charged and will appear as witnesses in the government's case, alongside the very people Pellicano surveilled and allegedly often intimidated for their benefit.

McTiernan pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, which was investigating Pellicano in 2006, and has been sentenced to four months in jail. He's out on bail pending his appeal. Christensen is charged with hiring Pellicano to wiretap Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the former wife of Christensen's longtime client, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, during a child support case. Christensen had pleaded not guilty and will be tried in a separate case.

In his heyday, Pellicano was repeatedly described as ruthless, menacing and scary, but the 63-year-old was at best tepid in his first day of court, acting as his own counsel. Wearing a prison-issue green Windbreaker, the former private eye barely mustered a defense. Speaking of himself in the third person (as demanded by the judge), Pellicano said it was "important for clients to have the knowledge that their problems became his problems. They loved him while they needed to."

U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer urged the former gumshoe to stick to what the evidence would show.

Prosecutor Lally described in his opening statement how Pellicano appealed to "wealthy, desperate people . . . people who would pay a premium price in order to get information to discredit and/or destroy adversaries."

For many Hollywood players, the stakes of this trial are not incarceration but humiliation. And Pellicano, despite his professed adherence to omerta, the Sicilian code of silence (also once his computer password), has turned out to be "the biggest government informant in the case," said Lally in his opening statement.