Testimony

Anthony Pellicano's former executive assistant told a federal jury Tuesday that a former LAPD sergeant provided confidential police records for years with "no questions asked" to the onetime private investigator. The testimony of Lily LeMasters bolstered government claims that former Sgt. Mark Arneson was part of a web of corruption spun by Pellicano on behalf of his rich and famous clients. LeMasters' allegations came only days after another former Pellicano employee testified that the indicted private eye paid off cops and others, including a onetime telephone company employee, to wiretap and intimidate targets of his pricey investigations.

Two of Hollywood's most powerful talent agents, Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane, breezed into the trial of private detective Anthony Pellicano on Wednesday for barely 10 minutes total of testimony. "This is going to be boring," Lourd quipped to reporters in the hallway outside the courtroom before his five minutes on the stand. In a way, he was right.

Another Hollywood power player provided a fleeting glimpse in federal court Thursday of some of the allegedly illegal handiwork of Los Angeles private detective Anthony Pellicano. Freddy DeMann, a former manager of Madonna and a co-founder of Maverick Records, testified that he hired Pellicano in 2000 to investigate his daughter Pilar's then-husband, who DeMann suspected of infidelity.

A few years ago, a stranger made Jimmy Covington an irresistible offer. He was sitting on the steps of a Hollywood office building when an elderly woman approached him. She said she would give Covington, who was living on the streets, a place to stay. And if he just filled out some paperwork, she could get him $2,000 in benefits within a month. The woman seemed sympathetic and sincere at first.

Oh, the tear-stained witness stand. After a few days of dry testimony about telephone circuitry and software encryption, the tears flowed Friday in the federal wiretapping and racketeering trial of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and four co-defendants.

A now-retired FBI agent was grilled Friday on why he didn't investigate legitimate jobs former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Mark Arneson may have worked for Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. Arneson, 54, in earlier testimony admitted that he did "cross the line" by snooping in police files for Pellicano, who is on trial on wiretapping and racketeering charges. Arneson maintained that the $195,000 Pellicano paid him was for legal services, including guarding the detective's Hollywood clients.

By his own confession, Austrian police say, Josef Fritzl held his daughter inside a hidden, windowless cellar for nearly a quarter of a century, raping her repeatedly and forcing her to give birth to seven of his children. When two of the children were freed this week, authorities said they were seeing sunlight for the first time.

An 18-year-old former student at Foshay Learning Center testified Thursday that she told a school administrator that she had had a sexual relationship with an assistant principal and that the administrator had advised her to recant statements she had made to police after she expressed concern that the man could go to jail.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, on Thursday gave Congress a markedly more upbeat assessment of the war than he did six weeks ago, saying violence has hit a four-year low and further troop reductions are likely in the fall. Qualifying his assessment, Petraeus said the additional troop withdrawals might be small, potentially less than a full 3,500-member combat brigade.

A defense attorney Thursday sought to link a high school football player gunned down near his Los Angeles home to a local gang embroiled in a bitter war with a rival group. When he was killed, Jamiel Shaw II, 17, was wearing a red belt emblazoned with black skulls and a crudely written "20," used by the Rollin' 20s, a Bloods gang, a police officer testified during a downtown Los Angeles court hearing.