Private Detectives

In a sweeping indictment that reads like an unfinished Hollywood screenplay, onetime private investigator Anthony Pellicano and six others were accused Monday of conspiring to wiretap, blackmail and intimidate dozens of celebrities and business executives, including actor Sylvester Stallone, comic Garry Shandling and real estate developer Robert McGuire. The 110-count federal indictment outlines a complicated web of payoffs to police, high-tech eavesdropping and other skulduggery.

A music producer indicted in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case was ordered held without bail Tuesday after a federal magistrate judge ruled that he was a risk to flee the court's jurisdiction. Robert Pfeifer was one of seven people named Monday in a sweeping 110-count indictment accusing Pellicano, a disgraced former private investigator, of heading a vast conspiracy to conduct wiretaps and dig up dirt on celebrities, reporters and entertainment executives.

Two decades ago, a fast-talking former bill collector from Chicago blew into Los Angeles to help unravel the U.S. government's drug case against carmaker John DeLorean. Part salesman, part sleuth, Anthony J. Pellicano quickly made a name for himself as the kind of bare-knuckles fighter that celebrities and entertainment moguls wanted in their corner. Someone who could make problems -- including lawsuits -- go away.

Attorneys for a former Los Angeles Times reporter allegedly threatened by indicted private investigator Anthony J. Pellicano have subpoenaed onetime Hollywood power player Michael Ovitz to provide a sworn deposition in her civil case. Lawyers for Anita Busch said they took the step after Monday's sweeping federal indictment charged that Pellicano and others accessed confidential police records to try to find embarrassing information about the reporter and dozens of others.

The federal indictment of Hollywood private investigator Anthony J. Pellicano for allegedly using wiretaps and police bribes to dig up dirt on celebrities and business executives has cast a spotlight on the often murky but growing practice of commercial sleuthing. America's appetite for litigation, a rise in corporate snooping on employees, partners and rivals, and the trafficking of vast stores of private information on computer databases have fueled a boom in private investigations.

A nanny grows disillusioned with her employer -- Canada's richest woman -- and helps the woman's rival in a child custody fight. A fledgling lawyer complains that she was sexually harassed by her firm's boss, a man made famous by the film "Erin Brockovich." A Beverly Hills couple goes through a bitter divorce that provides an opening for a convicted swindler to gain control of their business and real estate empire, once worth $40 million.

A Valencia businessman accused of paying Anthony Pellicano to wiretap a teenager who had accused him of sexual assault emerged Friday as the 13th person charged in the ongoing federal investigation of the indicted private eye. Federal court documents allege that George Kalta paid $75,000 in three installments between Oct. 17, 2001, and April 18, 2002, with the hope that the illegal tape recordings would help his case.

While working for the LAPD, veteran detective Mark J. Arneson found a way to turn his police expertise into profits: He became a private eye. Arneson allegedly went too far -- he was indicted this month with private investigator Anthony Pellicano on charges of illegally pulling private data from police computers. Pellicano allegedly paid Arneson $189,000 for his services. Arneson was suspended in 2003 and has left the department. But other officers do outside investigative work.

Anthony Pellicano cut a figure straight out of "L.A. Confidential." Intimidation for hire -- the tough-talking gumshoe with the Louisville Slugger always at the ready. Over the course of his 20-some years in Los Angeles, he also managed to insinuate himself into the New Hollywood -- a place where ambition, rivalry and hardball tactics are as much an art form as a blood sport.

Authorities expect to reveal at least one more grand jury indictment in the wiretap and racketeering investigation of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday. The disclosure came during a 30-minute court hearing in downtown Los Angeles in which Assistant U.S. Atty. Daniel Saunders also told attorneys for Pellicano and seven other defendants that the government would soon turn over evidence that includes thousands of pages of documents.