Divorce, Pellicano-Style

Jude Green says the private eye blocked her car and glared at her, before issuing perceived threats through attorneys in a bitter split.

By Kim Christensen
Times Staff Writer

May 3, 2006

In the throes of a rancorous divorce from a now-dead multimillionaire, Jude Green remembers the day five years ago when a sullen stranger confronted her outside a Santa Monica dog groomer where she'd taken her Shih Tzu for a trim.

Arms folded, eyes behind dark glasses, he had blocked her car with his and stood nearby, striking a menacing pose without uttering a word. Then he followed her to a nearby coffee shop, again boxing in her vehicle.

At the time, Green thought he "was just some jerk." Only later did she realize who it was: Anthony Pellicano.

"I saw his picture in the paper and I said, 'Oh, my God. That's the guy!' " Green, 53, said in an interview.

It was her only personal encounter with the Hollywood private eye, now indicted on federal wiretapping and racketeering charges. But Green said he also threatened one of her lawyers in her divorce from financier Leonard I. Green, and she suspects he was behind other incidents, including a telephone threat and the slashing of her Lincoln Navigator's tires two days after she testified before a federal grand jury in his case in 2003.

Though details of Green's once-lavish lifestyle and acrimonious divorce have been aired previously, her account sheds new light on why her name is on the government's list of Pellicano's alleged victims. It also underscores the investigator's penchant for hardball tactics and his role as a "negotiator" for the well-heeled clients — or their lawyers — who allegedly unleashed him.

But far from being Hollywood's best-kept secret, Green said, Pellicano's down-and-dirty approach was so well known in certain circles that two of her lawyers told her that opposing counsel — prominent divorce attorney Dennis Wasser — had hired him.

"One of the first attorneys I hired came right out and said, 'Dennis Wasser just told me down at the courthouse that Pellicano's on your case,' " Green said, recalling the lawyer's cautionary advice: "You need to get a cross-cut shredder because he's going to be going through your garbage and he's going to be checking your background. And you'd better get your house swept because your phones are probably tapped as well."

Green interpreted the advice as a not-so-subtle message, from Pellicano and Wasser, designed to force a quick settlement. And she said her lawyers viewed Pellicano's involvement with a business-as-usual attitude.

"They let me know that this is the way of life in L.A. family law," Green said.

Through his attorneys, Wasser has acknowledged he is a "person of interest" in the investigation but denies wrongdoing.

"My understanding is that Dennis Wasser did not hire Pellicano in connection with his representation of Leonard Green," said Wasser's attorney, Vincent Marella.

Pellicano is in jail awaiting trial on charges he used illegal wiretaps and background checks to obtain confidential information on celebrities, business executives and spouses, typically to help gain an advantage in litigation for attorneys or other clients.

When he allegedly invaded Green's privacy by accessing a law enforcement database — on April 26, 2001, according to Pellicano's indictment — she and Leonard were living apart and waging war in the courts.

A Michigan native and an occupational therapist by training, Jude had met Leonard in 1994 in Aspen, Colo., where she was living. At the time, she was separated from her second husband, a wealthy Greek nightclub owner, when the financier — some 20 years her senior and the founder of the West Coast's largest leveraged-buyout firm, Leonard Green & Partners — pressed her for a date, she said.

The couple married in July 1995, traveled abroad by private jet and hobnobbed with high society at such venues as the Los Angeles Opera. He was a founding director and chief executive. She chaired the 1998 Opening Night Gala.

She had carte blanche to design and build homes worth $20 million in Bel-Air, Malibu and Snowmass, Colo., according to court records, and her budget for art and antiques knew no bounds.

"I personally chose every single piece for our home in Bel-Air on Levico Way, totaling over $2 million," she said in a declaration.

For his part, Leonard was raking in tens of millions in income — nearly $65 million for four years ended 1999, according to tax returns cited in court records. He made so much money that he obsessed about it, his ex-wife recalled, and he regretted that he hadn't insisted on a prenuptial agreement. In 1997, he asked her to sign a "post-nup," she said, and was upset when she balked.

That's when Leonard first uttered "the Pellicano word," Green said, threatening to sic the private investigator on her.

When she refused, Leonard filed for legal separation in May 1997. He later dropped it, but not before complaining in court papers that he had lavished her with cash and expensive jewelry, two valuable artworks by Toulouse-Lautrec, two Range Rovers and a Jaguar.

"In return, Jude has acted like Mike Tyson," he said in a declaration. "While she has not bitten my ear, she has voraciously assaulted my finances and my emotions."

In 2000, Leonard filed for divorce, sparking an acrimonious proceeding that spanned five years. It revealed an IRS examination of some of the couple's tax returns, and it unleashed Jude's bombshell allegation that Leonard had engaged in illegal insider trading by tipping off friends to an impending acquisition of one company by another.

He vehemently denied that allegation and sued her for $25 million, alleging she had defamed him and hurt his business. By then, she had sued him for breach of contract, contending he'd broken his promise to take care of her and her two boys "for all eternity."

At 10 p.m. Feb. 15, 2001, against the backdrop of this pitched legal battle, Green received a telephone call that she took as a death threat.

"Keep your mouth shut, for your sake and for your family's sake — or else," the gruff-voiced caller said and then hung up, according to police and court records.

Green immediately called Los Angeles police, and the next day filed a written report stating she suspected her estranged husband. She now thinks it was Pellicano or someone he put up to it, a suspicion bolstered by the fact that Pellicano was working for her husband around the time he was believed to have been spying on her.

On March 20, 2001, according to a copy of Leonard's checking account ledger, he paid Pellicano $25,000 for "Legal fees — L. Green divorce." The next check in the register was to the law firm of Jaffe and Clemens, which represented him in the divorce.

Partner Bruce Clemens said the firm never hired Pellicano or dealt with him in any capacity.

"If something was going on with Leonard Green and Anthony Pellicano, I don't know about it and I didn't hear about it," Clemens said.

But in early May 2001, Green received a letter from one of her lawyers — Scott Weston — indicating that Pellicano was participating in negotiations for the other side, along with Clemens.

"Bob Nachshin can pursue settlement with Bruce Clemens or Anthony Pellicano," Weston wrote, referring to his partner, Robert Nachshin.

Green viewed Pellicano's involvement in negotiations as yet another threat.

"Since Pellicano is not a lawyer — but was even by then a well-known 'celebrity sleuth' with a reputation for 'stopping at nothing' to do his clients' bidding — Jude took [it] as a threat to settle, or else," another of her lawyers later said in court papers. "This was especially true in light of the tire slashing and other incidents" that she experienced.

Howard Price, an attorney for Nachshin and Weston, declined to comment on the letter.

Clemens said he had no idea why he was mentioned in the letter, adding that his firm did not use Pellicano as a negotiator.

Around the same time as Weston's letter, Pellicano approached Nachshin outside a courtroom where Green's support request was being heard, according to Green and one of her lawyers who wrote to Nachshin and asked him to explain the conversation on the record.

That didn't happen, but Green said Nachshin told her that Pellicano had threatened him.

"I was told that Pellicano said, 'There's an easy way to make money and there's a hard way to make money — do not go in for her support order,' " Green said in an interview.

Through his attorney, Nachshin denied that Pellicano had threatened him.

"Neither Mr. Nachshin nor Mr. Weston were threatened by Mr. Pellicano or felt threatened by being informed that he had been hired by Mr. Green," Price said. He declined to comment on Green's contention that Nachshin was one of the lawyers who had told her early on that Pellicano was working for her estranged husband.

Green said her encounter with the intimidating motorist at the dog-grooming parlor occurred shortly before the Pellicano-Nachshin exchange outside the courtroom. It happened one day in April 2001, she said, when a car pulled up behind hers and "really wedged it in."

"This guy got out of the car and crossed his arms and stood in front of the car in a very menacing way, but didn't say a word," she said. He waited until she came out, she said, and moved his car only when she told him, "I'm putting my car in reverse and yours is going with me."

The scene replayed a short while later, after he followed her to a nearby coffee shop.

"This time, I said, 'Now I'm putting it in reverse and calling 911,' " she said.

The Greens' divorce was final in 2001, although litigation continued over the division of property even after Leonard died in 2002 in Venice, Italy, of complications from heart surgery. The case finally settled in early 2005, and included selling their real estate and divvying up the proceeds between Jude and her late ex-husband's estate.

But like others who've been told they are victims of Pellicano's snooping, Green said she believes the divorce case was tainted, raising the possibility of revisiting the settlement.

"Every contract that was made was fraudulently made with the tactical illegal advantage that Pellicano had," she said. "And I may be the rightful heir and the widow of Leonard Green, because I don't think I'm divorced from him."

Green, who also has battled with lawyers who represented her — including Nachshin, who sued her for more than $200,000 in fees and settled for $130,000 — recently complained to the state Supreme Court about attorneys on both sides of her divorce and related litigation.

Now living in Pacific Palisades "in a rental house" — albeit a very nice one — Green said she is glad to see Pellicano being held to account for his alleged crimes.

"He thought he was dealing with a princess in Bel-Air in a palace, but he was dealing with a street-smart Detroit girl," she said. "And I'm not afraid of him, and I'm not afraid of the bully lawyers and the judges…. And I'm going to go to my grave knowing I told the truth."