Celebrity Sleuth Found Guilty!

The private eye to the stars looks to be setting his sights on prison after a jury convicted him of racketeering today

By Josh Grossberg May 15, 2008 8:22 PMTags
Anthony Pellicano, Garry Shandling, Chris RockNick Ut/AP photo, Lester Cohen/WireImage.com, Steve Granitz/WireImage.com

The private eye to the stars is going to be orbiting a prison cell, possibly for the rest of his life.

After deliberating for nearly two weeks, a Los Angeles jury today convicted Anthony Pellicano of a slew of charges for using illegal means to pry into the lives of and dig up dirt on such Hollywood heavies as Sylvester Stallone and Garry Shandling.

Pellicano was found guilty of 76 counts and could face hundreds of years behind bars when sentenced in September. His four codefendants, including a police sergeant and former telephone company employee, were also convicted on a variety of charges.

As the verdict was read, the 64-year-old Pellicano, who represented himself, exhibited little emotion.

Government lawyers alleged the celebrity sleuth illegally accessed police and telephone-company databases to run unauthorized checks on the likes of Shandling, Kevin Nealon and Keith Carradine and bugged the phones of Stallone and others for information the P.I.'s clients could use in legal proceedings.

Shandling had a starring role in the trial, telling jurors that he was shaken after learning his records were searched by Pellicano, apparently to gain leverage in a lawsuit between Shandling and former manager Brad Grey, now the chairman of Paramount Pictures.

Grey himself took the stand to disavow any knowledge that his high-octane lawyer, Bert Fields, had hired Pellicano to go to extreme means to beat Shandling.

Chris Rock also squirmed his way through testimony, saying he had no clue that Pellicano was breaking the law when the funnyman hired him to investigate a model who claimed Rock knocked her up.

Carradine and one-time Tinseltown superagent Michael Ovitz were among the other witnesses in the monthlong trial.

All told, the seven-woman, five-man jury found Pellicano guilty of single counts of racketeering and conspiracy, 18 counts of wire fraud, 19 counts of unauthorized computer access, 13 counts of identity theft, 13 counts of computer fraud, 9 counts of wiretapping and single counts of wiretapping conspiracy and possession of a wiretapping device.

He was acquitted on a single charge of unauthorized computer access.

Former LAPD Sgt. Mark Arneson was convicted of all 46 charges he was facing, including racketeering and conspiracy. Retired SBC field technician Rayford Earl Turner was convicted of 16 of 21 counts, also including racketeering and conspiracy.

Kevin Kachikian, the computer programming who invented Pellicano's phone-tapping software, was convicted of conspiracy to commit wiretapping and possession or manufacture of a wiretapping device. He was acquitted of nine other charges.

Abner Nicherie, who hired Pellicano to wiretap a business rival, was convicted on a single count of aiding and abetting a wiretap.

Sentencing is set for Sept. 24.