McTiernan was one of seven people who pleaded guilty to charges connected to the case before Pellicano's trial. That group also included actor Keith Carradine's ex-wife, Sandra.
But for the most part, if Pellicano's wealthy clientele showed up at all, it was to testify under limited-use immunity agreements that protected them from prosecution for what they said. After their turns on the stand, they rushed out of the courtroom trailed by their lawyers, off to work, off to Europe.
So maybe the trial wasn't about Hollywood -- but it was very Hollywood.
The plot lines were as melodramatic as a Lifetime cable movie.
The tapes played in court -- or leaked earlier -- revealed the uncensored, tawdry and vain musings of his sophisticated clientele as they were alternately coddled by Pellicano and harangued for more money.
Pellicano wiretapped Stallone (a.k.a. "Johnny Friendly" in phone company records) for the movie star's ex-business manager, Kenneth Starr (not the Clinton prosecutor.) And he tapped Carradine for his ex-wife, she testified. (She also dated Pellicano.)
Paramount Pictures chief Grey hired Pellicano to help him after comedian Shandling sued him for $100 million. Ovitz unleashed Pellicano on two people suing his company and on two reporters, Anita Busch and Bernard Weinraub, who wrote stories he objected to for the New York Times. Both men denied knowing that the private eye was doing anything illegal.
In June 2002, Busch -- who by that time was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times -- walked to her Audi outside her home to find a dead fish under a pan, a hole in the windshield and a note that read "STOP." A couple of months later, Busch said, she was almost run down by a car. Phone company staffers twice found a suspicious "half-tap" on her phone lines -- a wire that can be used for legitimate repairs or for wiretapping.
"I was scared 24/7," Busch testified.
Pellicano performed other nasty chores for his clients, trial witnesses said. Ivan Kaufman, chief executive of a Long Island-based commercial mortgage banking company, hired him to run interference with a young Los Angeles woman, Timea Zsibrita, who said she was carrying Kaufman's child.
Zsibrita testified that Pellicano drove her to an appointment for an abortion -- and then presented her with the $125,000 check that her lover had promised in exchange for keeping quiet.
