Man Derides Claim of 'Hit' on Him Sought by Pellicano

The inmate's lawyer says it was officials who risked his life by moving him to another prison.

By Chuck Philips and Kim Christensen
Times Staff Writers

May 24, 2006

Alexander Proctor, a career criminal allegedly hired by Anthony Pellicano to threaten a reporter, dismisses a government claim that the Hollywood private eye conspired with Chicago mobsters to "hit" him in prison.

It is federal prosecutors — not Pellicano — who have put Proctor's life in jeopardy, his lawyer says.

"When prisoners see a media report about the government suddenly moving a fellow inmate, they automatically assume he is an informant," said attorney William S. Pitman. "But Alex is the most resolute nonsnitch I've ever met. It's a matter of pride with him. Snitching is against his code of ethics."

Proctor, 62, was arrested four years ago for allegedly placing a dead fish with a rose in its mouth and a sign that said "Stop" on the windshield of a car owned by Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch.

When an FBI informant surfaced later with a recording of Proctor boasting that he was working for Pellicano at the time, federal authorities raided the investigator's Sunset Boulevard office. That November 2002 search triggered the ongoing racketeering and wiretapping probe that has much of Hollywood in its grip.

Prosecutors unveiled the purported murder plot by Pellicano against Proctor last week in court papers. Proctor, now serving a 10-year sentence for drug trafficking, had by then been moved from a federal prison in Illinois to another in Georgia for his safety.

Although his alleged threat against Busch made Proctor a key figure in the unfolding scandal, little has come to light publicly about his background — and his relationship with Pellicano.

Court records detail a criminal record that stretches back 30 years and includes previous drug convictions. Proctor said through his lawyer that his acquaintance with Pellicano spanned much of that time — nearly 20 years — and that they were introduced by a mutual friend.

In the weeks before the FBI's raid — but after the Busch threat — Proctor was frequently in touch with Pellicano, according to a former employee of the private investigator. The ex-employee said the two spoke often, usually by phone.

"They had a lot of conversations," the former employee said.

Proctor was arrested in October 2002 after unwittingly implicating himself in the Busch plot in a recorded conversation with an FBI informant, according to court records. A federal indictment based on the threat was later dismissed, but state charges are pending.

Shortly after his arrest, a federal grand jury also indicted Proctor on charges of possessing heroin and methamphetamine for sale, as well as conspiring to import cocaine from Mexico and to manufacture and distribute the drug Ecstasy.

"I'm telling you, without question, I could sell a million of 'em," Proctor allegedly told an unnamed "cooperating witness" in a recorded discussion of Ecstasy pills.

Proctor ultimately pleaded guilty to carrying two kilograms of heroin from Los Angeles to Atlanta in a secret compartment in his 1988 Acura Legend. The remaining charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement that resulted in his 10-year sentence.

His imprisonment is the latest episode in a criminal history that spans three decades and includes at least two other drug convictions and allegations of counterfeiting U.S. currency, using sophisticated electronics to evade authorities, and supplying large quantities of cocaine to the Hungarian Mafia in Los Angeles.

Former Secret Service Agent Gerald Petievich remembers his first meeting with Proctor, which occurred while he was working undercover in the 1970s. He remembers him as wiry and well spoken, with a slight German accent.

"A counterfeiter introduced me to Alex Proctor as a big-time cat burglar," Petievich recalled. "And I remember Proctor telling me … that he had a device that would open garage doors so he could go in when people were not at home. He would brag about that."

A native of Germany, Proctor was first caught running afoul of the law in Los Angeles in 1976, court records show, when he was convicted of burglarizing a car and sentenced to a year in jail, with six months suspended.

In March 1981, his exploits made the news when he was among seven people arrested in connection with a $2-million string of robberies of Southern California jewelry salesmen.

Los Angeles police collected a variety of evidence, including a .45-caliber Thompson submachine gun, complete with drum magazine and violin case. They also seized a motor home, which they described as a rolling counterfeiting shop with a printing press, dryer, engraving plates and paper for printing $20, $50 and $100 bills.

The suspects had $200,000 in bogus bills and $14,500 in real currency, as well as "sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment," according to a Los Angeles Times report.

At the time, however, then-Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said the counterfeiting operation was only a sideline to the gang's primary criminal enterprise: robbing jewelry salesmen of their sample cases over a two-year period.

Proctor and three of those arrested were later charged with conspiracy and making bogus bills with intent to defraud. Court records indicate that one of the four was convicted, but don't reflect the disposition of Proctor's charges.

However, within about a year of that arrest, he and some of the same cast of characters popped onto the radar of local and federal authorities investigating drug trafficking involving Los Angeles-based members of the Hungarian Mafia, court records state.

Known as "Alex the German," Proctor was the Hungarian Mafia's chief supplier of cocaine, delivering a pound a week to the mobsters while using a Venice business as a front for the illicit operation, the government alleged. According to a search warrant affidavit, an informant told Los Angeles police that Proctor headed a burglary ring that traded stolen jewelry for cocaine.

The affidavit also alleged that he took great care to avoid detection, using an answering service and an alias to field calls from customers.

"Proctor and his associates (also) use sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment to determine whether they are being monitored by police," the affidavit states.

The government based its allegations, in part, on information furnished by Bela Marko, a reputed Hungarian Mafia enforcer who was then under arrest on a drug charge and told police that Proctor moved large quantities of narcotics for the organization.

Pitman, Proctor's lawyer, said his client told him the government informants' allegations in that case were false. Still, he pleaded no contest to a drug possession charge and was placed on six months' probation.

A year before that drug investigation, police linked Proctor to the Hungarian Mafia when he attended the funeral of another purported enforcer, Steven Szendro, whom Marko shot to death in what he claimed was self-defense. He was not charged, but met his own end in a later shootout.

An illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet, Marko and well-known Los Angeles Police Department Det. Russell Kuster shot each other to death in October 1990 in the lounge of the Hilltop Hungarian Restaurant in Hollywood. The shooting occurred when the off-duty Kuster confronted Marko for waving a handgun at other patrons, police said at the time.

Marko hit Kuster with four bullets from a 9-millimeter handgun equipped with a laser sight, The Times reported, while three of the detective's seven rounds found their mark.

Between his arrests in the Hungarian Mafia case and the threat against Busch, Proctor had at least two other drug convictions, court records show.

In 1987, he was convicted of possession of cocaine for sale and was sentenced to a year in jail. In 1990, he was convicted of the same charge and ordered to spend a year, at his own expense, in a halfway house.

A 112-count indictment naming Pellicano and six other defendants in February alleged that they used wiretaps and illegal background checks to gather "confidential, embarrassing or incriminating" information, typically to help attorneys and other clients gain an advantage in litigation.

Since then, authorities have said Pellicano should not be released on bail because he poses a danger to potential witnesses

Assistant U.S. Atty. Daniel A. Saunders has accused Pellicano of threatening a former employee, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney and a Vanity Fair reporter. At one point, Pellicano was moved to an isolated cell after authorities uncovered what they said was a plot to spring him from prison by helicopter.

Saunders declined to comment this week.

Pellicano's lawyer, Steven Gruel, said the government has not charged his client in any of the alleged threats, including the purported plan to murder Proctor.

"Mr. Pellicano adamantly denies orchestrating any type of violence against Mr. Proctor," Gruel said Tuesday. "This is the latest in an endless list of false allegations directed at Mr. Pellicano [by prosecutors] intended to paint him in a bad light."

Proctor's lawyer also doesn't believe that Pellicano planned to kill his client.

"Alex has no reason to believe that Pellicano put a hit out on him," Pitman said.

*

Times staff writer Greg Krikorian contributed to this report.