Hollywood's Biggest Scandal Ever?
NEW YORK, April 28, 2006
(CBS) The biggest show in Hollywood these days is the federal wiretapping case against a former private eye. Anthony Pellicano is accused of spying on and for some of the biggest names in show business.
An article in the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine suggests an
FBI raid of Pellicano's office turned up lots of evidence, including a
taped conversation that may have been between Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman when they were getting divorced.
Bryan Burrough, co-author of the article, asserted on The Early ShowFriday
that, "This is already, even in the early stages, Hollywood's largest
and most significant scandal in years, perhaps, ever, because every
disagreement in Hollywood, every contract disagreement, every stalker,
every baby born out of wedlock, involves attorneys. And for 20 years,
when things got nasty, Hollywood attorneys turned to Anthony Pellicano
to investigate — and, we now know, illegally wiretap his opponents."
Burrough told co-anchor Rene Syler
Pellicano "styled himself for his clientele. That is, he made himself
to be kind of a movie detective: smooth, double-breasted suits, opera
on the speakers in the office. He wanted to be like Sam Spade, and
unfortunately, he resorted to tactics you see often in the movies that
just aren't done in real life: brandishing baseball bats at people and
wiretapping telephones."
The scandal, Burrough says the scandal "has been percolating for
about four years, since a dead fish was thrown on a newspaper
reporter's car and Pellicano was implicated. He was put away on weapons
charges."
The Vanity Fair article observes that Pellicano "was poised to
emerge from prison in February 2006, when he was indicted again, this
time with two former cops and two former employees of Pacific Bell, on
112 charges of wiretapping and of paying policemen to illegally access
law-enforcement databases. Pellicano remains in custody while rumors
ricochet that he will begin "ratting out" his clients."
On The Early Show, Burrough added, "Just about every week now, there are more people indicted in the probe."
Burrough told Syler that a tape of what may be a 2001
conversation between the then-divorcing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman
has entered the picture: "We know Tom Cruise, via his attorney, hired
Pellicano on at least two occasions. And it got so bad during the
divorce with Nicole Kidman that Nicole widely assumed that she was, in
fact, being taped. We don't know that she was. But she would get on the
phone during conversations and say, 'Tom, are you listening? Am I
saying the right thing?' And eventually, we're told, investigators did
find a single tape of her on the telephone. We don't know where that
came from."
Comedian Chris Rock is the latest big name mentioned in connection to the case.
"We know," Burrough explained to Syler, "that Rock, through
his attorney, hired Pellicano when a young woman several years ago
accused him of fathering her child. It does not appear that Rock was
the child's father, however. She alleged she had been wiretapped and
harassed."
Among other mega-names to have come up: Sylvester Stallone.
"It's funny," Burrough remarked. "Stallone used to hire Pellicano,
and then Pellicano went after him for somebody else. In this case, the
indictments allege Stallone was wiretapped during a business dispute
with his former business manager."
Burrough added, "Right now, the targets of the probe that
everyone's talking about are big studio executives and big agents —
people that folks in Texas probably don't read about every day.
"But there are hundreds of stars, directors, producers, who are one
step removed from this at the moment, because their attorneys are under
investigation.
"A lot of people are pretty scared."
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